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Low-Cost "Paper Skin" Boasts Same Sensory Functions As the Real Thing (gizmag.com)

Zothecula writes: Multipurpose sensors that are both flexible and wearable could one day be used for everything from monitoring the body's vital signs to changing the way we interact with computers. Working toward this goal, researchers in Saudi Arabia have used low-cost everyday items that you probably have laying around your house to develop a paper-based sensor that reacts to the same stimuli as human skin, such as pressure, touch and temperature.

18 comments

  1. This has enormous ramifications. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A more realistic Fleshlight should be right at the very top of the list.

    1. Re:This has enormous ramifications. by Locke2005 · · Score: 2

      Dammit, you beat me to the obligatory "sexbot" comment! Wait until the Japanese get there hands on this!

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    2. Re:This has enormous ramifications. by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 2

      Dammit, you beat me to the obligatory "sexbot" comment! Wait until the Japanese get there hands on this!

      Yeah... their hands...

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
    3. Re:This has enormous ramifications. by malditaenvidia · · Score: 1

      They'll probably develop something boring like tactile-feedback toilet paper. You know how they get about their bathroom tech.

    4. Re:This has enormous ramifications. by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      Of course, any such product will have applications in the usual porn domain ... rule #34 always wins.

      Anything like, er, "tactile-feedback toilet paper" is trivially applicable to many other naughty things. Wrap it around your willy and let it 'tactile-feedback til happy ending', AND clean you up afterwards. Then it's just another setting on the legendary Japanese toilets -- arigato wank-u kanpai.

      I refuse to believe one of those buttons can't already be misused for a little personal gratification.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    5. Re:This has enormous ramifications. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hated that he posted sooo much, but I do not like that BIZX has silenced APK.

      First they came for APK, and everyone cheered ...
      Sorry for the OT Godwin.

  2. Super-touch-sensor tissue by Freshly+Exhumed · · Score: 2

    Where is all that screeching and wailing coming from? It sounds like Mr. Whipple squeezed the new super-touch-sensor Charmin over in aisle 7.

    --
    I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
  3. Wow thats cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    make it as thin as possible, then you have to buy a new one after having used it three times.

  4. Shameful by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

    I hope these researchers are developing some sort of coverup for that paper skin. As we all know, in SA the display of *gasp* female bare skin is shameful. Because the men can't control themselves, or God doesn't like female skin or something.

    1. Re:Shameful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, because if a man's husband doesn't cover up his beautiful wife -- he may not be long for the world.

      Simple survival of the fittest.

      In the desert, passions run hot. Over time only the one's who kept their wives out of view lived long enough to reproduce.

    2. Re:Shameful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      a man's husband? Do you not proof read? or are you trying to say something that needs a little more explanation?

  5. The summary needs fixing by cripkd · · Score: 3, Funny

    "that reacts to the same stimuli as human skin, such as pressure, touch,flogging, beating and temperature" There, since this is from Saudi Arabia, I fixed that.

    --
    Curiously yours, crip.
  6. And I detect hot air, from them by dsmatthews9379 · · Score: 1

    There is nothing new in this work, most of it looks like kid's science projects or the stuff you see on instructables.com, all they did was do several at he same time, so what is the big deal?

    If I am making millions or billions of something the exotic configuration of the materials is irrelevant, as the astounding advanced in OLED 4K displays demonstrate.

  7. Low-Cost? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We can fix that...

    - Big Pharma

  8. That's Good by Greyfox · · Score: 1

    The robots will be much easier to burn if their exoskeletons are made of paper. Good thinking, there! Bonus: they'll be much less likely to give us a hard time about being squishy if we can give them a hard time about being flammable.

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

  9. Low-budget "science" by werepants · · Score: 1

    This sounds like it's somewhere between innovative and a high-school science fair experiment. One of their examples is measuring temperature based on changes in the resistivity of aluminum foil... not exactly groundbreaking. While the physics makes it possible, and the materials may be cheap, the hardware you'll need to measure the tiny changes in the properties of these household materials is going to cost much more than the materials themselves, so the practical utility of this is minor, I'd suspect.

    I'd be happy to be corrected, but there's a reason that existing electronic sensors are expensive and built the way they are. It's one of the classic 3-way problems: Cheap, Accurate, Reliable, pick any two. Except in this case, I'm thinking these things will be neither accurate nor reliable, and even being cheap isn't guaranteed if you have to use an expensive array of analog-digital-converters and microcontrollers to render a patch of this "paper skin" functional.

  10. Research from Sadia Arabia? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your joking right? They spend 5 times a day praying on their knees to a god who doesn't really exist. How do they have time to do any actual research?

    1. Re:Research from Sadia Arabia? by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 1

      Your joking right? They spend 5 times a day praying on their knees to a god who doesn't really exist. How do they have time to do any actual research?

      The God they are worshiping is the same as the Christian God. In the US, unless you profess that you believe in Him (or Her) you have no chance of being elected to high political office. How is insisting your leaders believe in this non existent God more likely to result in good science than worshiping Him (or Her)?