Google-owned smartphone maker Motorola has applied for a patent for an “electronic tattoo” on people’s necks that doubles as a mobile microphone (and transceiver), lie detector, and digital display.

The tattoo would capture vibrations, or sound, directly from a user’s throat, thus eliminating background noise that so often mars conversations over mobile phones.

The sound would then be transmitted from the electronic tattoo, which has its own power supply built-in, to a nearby smartphone via Bluetooth, near-field communication, also known as NFC, or the wireless technology ZigBee.

According to the patent, the device could also be used as a lie detector by measuring the skin’s electrical conductance or “galvanic skin response” – the level at which electric current passes through something.

“A user that may be nervous or engaging in speaking falsehoods may exhibit different galvanic skin response than a more confident, truth-telling individual,” reads the patent.

From Wikipedia.com at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime:

“Technology played a significant part in the detection of thoughtcrime in Nineteen Eighty-Four—with the ubiquitous telescreens which could inform the government, misinform and monitor the population.  The citizens of Oceania are watched by the Thought Police through the telescreens.  Every movement, reflex, facial expression, and reaction is measured by this system, monitored by the Ministry of Love.

Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard.  There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment.  How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork.

—Part I, Chapter I, Nineteen Eighty-Four”

Unfortunately, through the “wonders” of wireless communication, techno geeks, and corporations and governments who seem to admire “Big Brother,” each day brings us closer to making the fiction portrayed by Nineteen Eighty-Four the reality of the present.

The original source story for this blog posting may be found at the following link:  http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/motorola-wants-to-tattoo-a-smartphone-receiver-on-your-neck-20131108-2x5ae.html.

For a complete PDF version of the US Patent application, refer to the following link:
Patent Application for Neck Tattoo.