New iPod nano uses human skin to transmit audio

If you're a regular reader of Engadget then you know the two best means of securing research funding are: (1) claim you're developing a robotic companion for the elderly or, (2) somehow link yourself to the über product du jour, iPod. Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) took up the latter approach yesterday by unveiling an iPod nano which communicates with earphones via your body's ability to pump electrical signal. Oh sure, the prototype requires the user to keep a finger pressed to the iPod to close the circuit and there's always risk of a nasty infection after implanting the 10-microwatt/2Mbps chip in your forearm but hey, prototype or not think of the time you'll save not having to untangle your headphone cables every morning. Hey KAIST, don't forget to pay out royalties to Microsoft when this goes big 'cause they hold patent No. 6,754,472 (source of picture) detailing the use of human skin as a power conduit and data bus, mkay? Apparently the prototype was demonstrated without humans, but come on, you know some undergrad meat-sack went and secretly "sacrificed" himself for the cause...wouldn't you?

[Via MobileMag]

[ScottE @ Feb 10th 2006 7:12AM]

I for one welcome our iPod Nano overlords.

[Conrad Quilty-Harper @ Feb 10th 2006 7:12AM]

It's Microsoft Bob in zombie form!

[Est @ Feb 10th 2006 7:21AM]

This must be bad for the health, I suppose.

[ivan @ Feb 10th 2006 7:30AM]

Doesn't this make people closer to becoming cyborgs? sweet.

[Avinash @ Feb 10th 2006 8:06AM]

I had this idea before...next we need a wristwatch sized ipod with skin conductivity

[DarkFader @ Feb 10th 2006 8:09AM]

Nano-machines in your ears!

[cuby @ Feb 10th 2006 9:13AM]

we would like to thank Bethany from Mrs. Goldberg's 2nd grade class for her artistic assistance in filing this patent. well done Bethany, you stayed within the lines!

[z0iid @ Feb 10th 2006 9:15AM]

So, is this the first real skin flute?

[Holdem Strategy Charts @ Feb 10th 2006 9:37AM]

That is an impressive graphic. They must be serious about this thing. ;-)

[PEZ @ Feb 10th 2006 10:01AM]

this is like that itme I forgot to tie my show and fell down.

BTW< this tech is only for Korea, the FCC would never let this go here unless they could control it.

[Chris Gregg @ Feb 10th 2006 10:59AM]

Does the Microsoft patent require wearers to have webbed hands? That might be a way around patent infringement issue.

[bobby @ Feb 10th 2006 11:50AM]

they'll stick the chip in some kinda surgical-grade casing, infection shouldn't be too much of an issue (unless the nano has nothing but jam bands, then you might have to worry about random limbs detaching themselves because of the need to escape the torture.)

[blb @ Feb 10th 2006 12:18PM]

this misses the boat. they should develop an iPod-Pacemaker (or as I would call it, the iHeart-iPod

[David C. @ Feb 10th 2006 12:27PM]

intense!

[Firegryphon @ Feb 10th 2006 12:33PM]

Wasn't there a test that ran a watch off of your bodies electricity? If I remember right the people always felt run down. So much for being a coppertop right? I wonder if that will affect this.

[tuckster @ Feb 10th 2006 12:38PM]

Or they could use some of that money to help the homeless families in the US.

[John Hummel @ Feb 10th 2006 1:22PM]

I think it would be kind of cool to have some sort of plug-in right in the forearm. Imagine a slot you could put your iPod or Nano into that would just dock away, use its own power supply and transmit sound right to my ears. I could work out and not worry about losing cables or repositioning my iPod on my armband. Heck, if they could record as well then I could use that in meetings.

Cyborg city, here we come!

[ScottE @ Feb 10th 2006 1:43PM]

"Or they could use some of that money to help the homeless families in the US."

The Gates Foundation does lots of philanthropy work in the US. Bill and Melinda were Time's people of the year(with Bono.) I'm sure your good buddy Steve Jobs gives money to the poor...oh wait..what about Linus....oh well..I digress.

[Corey @ Feb 10th 2006 1:47PM]

I came up with this idea when I was 12, for some sci-project. I had a sony walkman hooked up and said you could hear the music through your hands. I want my money.

[Timerider @ Feb 10th 2006 2:14PM]

They already have something like this, it transmits audio signals through nerves in your head using 2 of these pad things. They say it sounds like it's coming from inside your head and it gets louder when you plug your ears. It even lets the deaf hear (if you hook up a microphone) since it completely bypasses the ear and goes strait to the brain.
futurehorizons.net

[Dean @ Feb 10th 2006 2:21PM]

So, if someone else touches you then would they hear your music too??

If it did work that way, then you could get a big group of people to all hold hands in a circle...

hehe...that would be neat

[weaszel @ Feb 10th 2006 2:38PM]

Dean, then we would have companies installing rootkits in our bodies to prevent unauthorized distribution of their music. They could stick it right up our--oh, uh... Never mind.

[Alain @ Feb 10th 2006 2:42PM]

Could I possibly listen to someone else's music by touching them?

[macewan @ Feb 10th 2006 2:46PM]

*wonder if insurance will cover this?*

[Marcel @ Feb 10th 2006 3:16PM]

It must be bad for yourself. Electrons of iron or bronze will entre you body. Isn't that how gold plating is done ?

[MIthra @ Feb 10th 2006 3:58PM]

No slots, wires or whatnot...how about secure RF, with audio implants. I don't know why somebody isn't doing it, we have the tech.

[A dude @ Feb 10th 2006 5:52PM]

Electrons are electrons... there's no such thing as "Iron electrons" or "bronze electrons". You're flooded with them all the time with no ill effect.

[cool pie @ Feb 11th 2006 1:08AM]

Hmmm. in my high school physis project(15 years ago) I demonstrate the effect of human conducting audio signals. Basically using only the left channel of stereo of amplifier and cassette tape player, hook up only the (-) of RCA cable and have a human connecting in between for the (+), you can hear music. That's because the music signal has high voltage/ampere ratio so you get low singal lost.
Nothing new...

[Peter Ramsing @ Feb 11th 2006 2:48AM]

Think of all the people that wouldn't use this because they think it is cool to have the white "iPod" headphones; what next? usless white cords to the ear?

[Don @ Feb 11th 2006 12:43PM]

It's about 35 years too late.

A scientist named G. Patrick Flanagan patened a device called the "neurophone" in 1968 that required only two pads placed on either side of the spine to do this. I saw it demonstrated on an old TV show when I was a kid. That version was banned by the FDA. His next version, patented several years later, was declared a secret by the department of defense. Flanagan fought to have the declaration lifted, and it was in 1972.


Here is the story, along with a many who experienced the new version:
http://www.rexresearch.com/flanagan/neuroph.htm

"With one electrode placed on the soft skin of my calf and the other on my chest, I heard the audio information from the tape recorder input in my head. I listened to both speech and music, and the fidelity was outstanding. I had a cassette tape recorder running two feet from me while this was going on; there is no evidence of the audio information recorded on the cassette by the recorder; I was the only entity hearing the neurophone, and it was therefore not producing and sound waves that the microphone of the recorder could pick up."

[College Student @ Feb 25th 2006 9:51AM]

Think of all the people that wouldn't use this because they think it is cool to have the white "iPod" headphones; what next? usless white cords to the ear?