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Toys

Palm OS Powered Tattooing Robot Debuts in Vienna 171

Posted by chrisd from the humans-now-completely-useless dept.
Makarand writes "Ananova has an article on the world's first tattooing robot. An Austrian electrician, after being left with some permanent reminders of his tattooing robot project, has unveiled his creation at a hi-tech fair in Vienna. He said that he had to test it on himself to get the robot do the right thing and has not recieved any complaints from volunteers who got a tattoo for free at the trade fair."
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Palm OS Powered Tattooing Robot Debuts in Vienna More

Palm OS Powered Tattooing Robot Debuts in Vienna

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  • What's next? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Who didn't predict that robots would eventually take over art as well as everything else? Next thing you know there'll be street robots doing oil paintings for cash.

  • Huh? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Rhinobird ( 151521 )
    Who would want to tatoo a robot?
  • The robot part is cool but the tattoo looks like an etch-a-sketch design.
    • Yea, I don't know if I want to be stuck with something that looks like an etch-a-sketch picked for me by some nutty Austrian covered in examples of his previous attempts. That whole scene gives me the willies and when I see the look on that girl's face in the first picture, I realize I'm not alone!
    • Ok, to qualify this... I would not let this particular little robot tattoo me, simply because it is far too primitive (I mean a 320x240 resolution?... uhhh, no thanks I'll pass)

      Now the merits of this idea, since this thing is a robot you will never have to worry about it getting drunk and fscking up your tattoo. It is capable of working very quickly, think about getting a tattoo that would normally take hours to do in only a few minutes (This would be ideal for those who don't care for pain as much as some people seem to)

      The tattoo will not just be a duplicate copy as you could write the software to randomly modify a few small factors such as particular color shades and small design elements to continue to have the one of a kind feel to the tattoo. I would most likely choose to use this with adobe Photoshop.

      Ok, how would this be done? I have a few ideas as to the particulars. This guy has already created an interface between the robotic mechanism and the command unit (palm in this case) so changing out the command interface shouldn't really be a big deal, I would hook up something like a 1.8 Ghz desktop to this thing (if portability was a concern use a laptop). For the software end of things I would choose to use Adobe Photoshop as that way only four passes would be necessary to render a full color tattoo (CYMK) using Photoshop to separate the color channels.

      And now for Johnny Carson's top ten reasons to have a robot do your tattoo...

      1. It won't try to steal money from your wallet when you pass out from the pain.

      2. It doesn't smell like camel cigarettes and cheap whiskey.

      3. You won't have to listen to it tell really bad stories.

      4. Yeah the equipment was sterilized, but when was the last time the artist was bathed?

      5. The robot will never puke on you in the middle of a tattoo.

      6. You can be sure the robot isn't going to try to get you drunk and take you home for a wild night of tattoos, sex, and odd things done with barnyard animals.

      7. Who wants a tattoo to take four hours, this baby can do them in four minutes.

      8. No bad breath in your face.

      9. I'm pretty sure the robot doesn't do cocaine...

      10. The robot will not be giving your girlfriend lewd looks while working on your tattoo and making fun of you when you scream, and telling you your a pansy ass bitch, and asking her why she would stay with a bitch, and it won't ask her if she wants a real robot, and ..... Oh man I need to lay down...

      heh, I guess this does have some advantages... If only it was a bit more advanced (although not "bender" advanced)

  • A PalmOS powered tatooing robot? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 01, 2002 @09:17AM (#4787319)
    Will those tatoos be in 15 or 16 bit colour? ;)
  • First of it looks like a painless procedure from the photograph.

  • Tattoo looks really really bad (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TracerJPN_USMC ( 623396 ) <<pj.en.ten-ynnus> <ta> <gjnotnroht>> on Sunday December 01, 2002 @09:18AM (#4787323)
    Is it just me, or does that tattoo look really bad? It looks like something a little kid would draw on some paper, why would somebody want that on their body for the rest of their lives??
    • As I understood, the tattoo shown was an example of the erroneous ones which occured during developement of the machine.
    • I have to agree with you. And the article was particularly vague in how these "designs" are chosen. I don't think I'd trust my body to something like this.

      I'm reminded of joking with my friend while sitting in a tattoo parlour while his girlfriend was getting more work done on her tattoo.
      We joked about subjecting our selves as ginuea pigs for him to practice on, he's a really good artist so I'm sure it wouldn't be that bad. I mentioned getting "Doc's Dootle Pads" written down our fore arms in that styling you see in a lot of hispanic tattoo's

      --

      If I knew this thing was efficiant and good, I *might* trust it to tattoo me, though not without seeing it in action first.
      • >>We joked about subjecting our selves as ginuea pigs for him to practice on

        I can't understand why it's necessary to practice on people, either for traditional "manual" tatooing or this robotic-style tatooing. Why not use a pork shoulder from the grocery butcher case, instead?
        • Because human skin and muscle tone (or lack thereof) is VERY hard to emulate with a pork roast.

          Also, being able to work around human dimentions is something that needs practice. If you want to tattoo the underside of a pork shouler, you just turn it around. Humans aren't that flexible.

          Also, it's something psychological. A tattoo artist should be able to put their canvasses at ease, because he/she's subjecting them to a lot of pain (relatively speaking).

          Pork shoulders have no emotions, humans do. That's why tattoo artists must train on humans. Also, humans are more capable of kicking the artist's ass if he/she fucks up.

    • This thing reminds me of the thousand monkeys, thousand typewriters continously hammering randomly on their keys, each linked up to the needle currently working their masterpiece on your limp, battered arm.

      And who exactly would trust a machine which was made by a bloke who tested his prototype on his OWN arm, the man is clearly an insane idiot.
    • It looks just like the little picture on the Palm. Perhaps he should draw better. It's not like the Robot made the original design.
    • I used "-" for ones and "o" for zeroes, it is my last name "york" minus the "y", (my friends call me "ork" for some reason) so anyay it looks like this o--o----o---oo-oo--o-o-- and is situated vertically on my left arm. Here is a Picture [geocities.com] (i didnt want to show the picture hosted on my dsl modem, just in case)
  • (i don't know about everyone else, but my graffiti skills are functional only...not pretty! ;)
    Freddy's computerised brain has a complicated programme for creating the designs that are constantly being improved and redesigned
    what would be really cool would be if the thing could run off of a more complex image, multiple needles and colors. Then you'd actually have something worthwhile...,you could do your designs on a PC, take your time, get it right, and then download it to the palm!
    BTW, my next tattoo is going to be color, not greyscale. ;)

  • Hrmm (Score:5, Funny)

    by acehole ( 174372 ) on Sunday December 01, 2002 @09:22AM (#4787336) Homepage
    So is the robot gruff, look like a biker and makes fun of your tattoo choice as well as laugh when you scream?

    • Re:Hrmm (Score:2, Funny)

      by The J Kid ( 266953 )
      So is the robot gruff, look like a biker and makes fun of your tattoo choice as well as laugh when you scream?

      No, but he does have Ogg/Vorbis [slashdot.org] support
    • Dude it doesn't hurt that much... I'd laugh if you scream too :)

  • Now in development: Leg pulling robot! (Score:5, Funny)

    by reality-bytes ( 119275 ) on Sunday December 01, 2002 @09:22AM (#4787341) Homepage
    A Sadistic PalmOS powered Etcha Sketch! This really is a bit of a leg-puller isn't it?

    I mean, a guy with the genius(?) to come up with a robot like this, doesn't have brains enough to do the development and testing on a leg of lamb first??

    "I haven't had any complaints yet." said Mr Passath.

    Yes, thats because all your customers are lying on the floor with severed arteries.
    "Note to self: Must write limb-diameter-compensation algorhythm....."

  • the tattoo (Score:5, Funny)

    by LittleBigScript ( 618162 ) on Sunday December 01, 2002 @09:23AM (#4787342) Homepage Journal
    It would go something like this.

    First write in your design...ok
    (I draw a dragon or something and then press whatever button)
    now tattooing....done

    Look at tattoo and see that it says,
    "1) pick up kids
    2) pay bills
    3) apt. with proctologist"

    oh, no!
  • i've been telling a lot of people as of late that my software project is just plain painful.

    i stand corrected. this is a REAL painful software project. what kind of version tracking does it employ? does it write something like version 0.82 in the corner of each tattoo with each build?

    so does then does this guy have like 82 different beta tests on his arms/ elsewhere? what exactly does a buffer overflow/ divide by zero crash in tattoo form FEEL like? insert your own joke here.

    nevermind, i don't want to know. ;-P

  • Error code list (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mattygfunk1 ( 596840 ) on Sunday December 01, 2002 @09:24AM (#4787348)
    Just in case anyone is interested in purchasing one of these you may find this useful.

    ERR01 - "EAGLE? I thought you said BEAGLE."

    ERR02 - "We're all out of red, so I used pink."

    ERR03 - "There are 2 O's in Bob, right?"

    ERR04 - "Sorry, sir, your chest will only hold the bottle dinghy."

    ERR05 - "SEGFAULT"

    ERR06 - "Anything else you want to say? You've got plenty of room back here."

    ERR07 - "I'll bet you can't tell I've never done this before."

    ERR08 - "The flag's all done and, you know, the folds of fat make a nice waving effect."

    Disclaimer - adapted from this source [sonic.net]

    ------

    treen_81 is now online [wallpaperscoverings.com]
  • I wonder if the resolution on a Palm Pilot is high enough to do
    some serious tattooing. But the real win would be full colour
    tattoos. I have to wonder about precision though (just look at
    the picture, the Palm screen differs form the tattoo on the arm)
    I do not see any form of feedback. Since the skin has moving
    muscles underneath it, I think feedback is necessary to keep a
    tattoo consistent. Just imagine tattooing a big circle, start at
    the top and go clockwise. Will there be a (perfect) circle or
    will it be a C line shape or spiral? I would not give my right
    arm for it to be a perfect circle... Would you?

  • Tattoos are artwork (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Moderation abuser ( 184013 ) on Sunday December 01, 2002 @09:33AM (#4787368)
    The quastion is, do you want an original hand made one, or a printout, permanently etched into your skin.

    • I did both, twice.

      My first tattoo was a barcode (my SSN as a UPC) that I made myself using barcode software, and had tattooed by hand.

      The second was Kain's clan symbol from the Legacy of Kain [legacyofkain.com] games, which was originally designed by a human artist, but given to me by the director of the series as an EPS file, which was then tattooed by hand.

  • Error! (Score:5, Funny)

    by halftrack ( 454203 ) <jonkje@gmailCOBOL.com minus language> on Sunday December 01, 2002 @09:37AM (#4787376) Homepage
    Printer ink cartridge empty. Using secondary output; tattoo device.
  • Mr Passath said: "It was a hard job because the only person I could test it on was myself which was painful but a good incentive to get it right as soon as possible.
    You have to wonder, Mr Passath is clever enough to design a tattooing robot, but why is he not clever enough to test it with a pen, transparent ink, or on soaked leather? I am not a tattoo specialist but this would work too, would it not?

  • Gee, and the tattoos are FREE? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MacAndrew ( 463832 ) on Sunday December 01, 2002 @09:39AM (#4787383) Homepage
    How generous! They always give out the samples for free. And how much does the robotic tattoo remover cost? (See Dr. Seuss, The Sneetches [amazon.com].)

    Who the heck volunteers for these things? No matter how confident you are in a complete stranger covered with screwed-up tattoos in a booth, do you know tattoos are murder to get rid of? I guess the risk looks pretty small compared to a robotic vasectomy or X-piercing machine, powered by an OS popularly associated with corrupted address books.

    And while you're here, we need some volunteers to test the experimental anthrax vaccine... No, it's OK, 3 out of 4 sheep live to say it's da bomb.

  • Ananova (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DoorFrame ( 22108 ) on Sunday December 01, 2002 @09:40AM (#4787385) Homepage
    Does anyone else disbelieve every single story they read on Ananova? Just wondering. As far as I can tell they're one step up from the Weekly World News.
    • They do have a photo of the tatooing machine...although it does look slightly like a photoshopped robotic arm. That woman's face does look familiar...almost as if it were from some stock photo.
  • Can someone tell me why this is under 'Toys'? Do people get tattoos when they're bored, or just for fun, or use this gadget frequently?
    • Those persons who are not tribals have no need for a tattoo. It is for recreation only. (Making a statement through art counts as recreation unless you're throwing paint on fur coats -- then it's vandalism.) Also it's really not ready for prime time - see the various comments posted under this story - so it's nothing more than a toy at this point. Some day the technology will grow up to the point where it's useful but there's quite a bit between here and there.

  • Accessory (Score:2, Funny)

    by bezza ( 590194 )
    So...is this available yet as an accesory to plug in my memory stick slot on my Sony Clie or what?

    This is really something I would need on the road.

  • At least, I really hope so...

  • So this poor man... (Score:5, Funny)

    by JustKidding ( 591117 ) on Sunday December 01, 2002 @10:10AM (#4787429)
    now has "hello, world!" tattooed onto his arm?
  • Luckily he made this machine big enough to fit on my penis.

    Read about and see the pix of my painful meeting with the machine here [slinkycity.com].

    (Yes, I am Jamaican, mon.)

  • Robot (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Veteran ( 203989 ) on Sunday December 01, 2002 @10:24AM (#4787476)
    The the only movie I can remember with a robot tattooing someone is "Starship Trooper" - any other examples?
    • No other movie examples but in "diamond age" bud goes to a parlor where someone is being tattooed in order to get a skull gun installed.

    • Right, yeah, I remember that.

      It was when the infantry were getting "Death from Above" tattooed on themselves. Now, ICBW, but when infantry is involved in a DFA, aren't they usually the recipients?

      Then again, it could have just been foreshadowing...

      • Well, they are the infantry, but they are dropped from spaceships. I think anything tatooed on you by a robot in a space station has "from above" inserted automaticly : )

        "Mom From Above"
        "Lucy From Above"
        "[picture of a mermaid] from above"
        etc
        : )

  • And tatoos the Palm logo on your butt...

  • I've got 19 'Tats (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The Mutant ( 167716 ) on Sunday December 01, 2002 @10:37AM (#4787521) Homepage
    And I don't see much of a future for this.

    I mean its a cool piece of work (I'm an AIBO owner [you-suck.com] and love stuff like this) but in the end Tattooing is more art than science, and I'm not sure the Robot can sub for the Artist, except in a purely mechanical way.

    Where the Robot might be useful is covering in large areas of skin with single colours (back, stomach, etc), but I don't see much capability here for detail work. And its not clear to me how the Robot handles blood - a human artist will wipe it away, restablish boundaries (i.e., check progress against finished design) and continue tattooing. If the Robot doesn't do this you're gonna be one bloody camper - litterally dripping! - by the time its over.

    Its not clear to me how the Robot determines depth. By this I mean how deep the needle is penetrating. If your Artist (human or Robot) doens't go deep enough, your growing skin will just push the design out as new cells form under the ink. Driving the needle too deep is another set of problems - potentially severe - as well.

    How will the Robot handle different skin? Everyones skin is different and absorbs ink differently. This is really a judgement call on the artists part - different coloured ink looks different on different peoples skin. You just can't use a bottle of RED and assume it will look the same on any two people because it won't. A good artist will adapt to this problem, both in real time (i.e., while the work is being done) and before the work begins.

    Also, don't forget that more complex 'Tats typically take multiple sessions, so you'll have a calibration problem next time you visit (i.e., aligning the machine and the existing 'Tat).

    Its not uncommon for some back pieces to take months if not years, involving dozens of sessions so these registration problems are potentially major.
    • Also, don't forget that more complex 'Tats typically take multiple sessions, so you'll have a calibration problem next time you visit (i.e., aligning the machine and the existing 'Tat).

      I would think that there would be ways to compensate for this... scanning the tat area to get reference points on where to put the pen down.

      I doubt that idiot who will now permanently look like he has been doodling on his arm will be capable of coding that. :)

    • Real uses for this (Score:4, Interesting)

      by No Such Agency ( 136681 ) <abmackay@@@gmail...com> on Sunday December 01, 2002 @11:32AM (#4787702)
      I suspect that the eventual use for this tech might be more along the lines of tattooing livestock etc, not people. I have no idea if livestock are tattooed for any reason (is branding still used?) but if you had to put tracking #'s on a large number of cows this might be the fastest way to do it. Needless to say, and at the risk of peripherally invoking Godwin's Law, I really hope nobody ever again wants to put tracking #'s on large numbers of people :-(

      • Re:Real uses for this (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Tracking numbers on people. My school has something like that; all students must wear their ID card around their neck, on a school-issued lanyard, and be clearly visible at all times with few (safety related) exceptions. Any students violating this will be sent home (or suspended or expelled if it happens frequently enough). If I were late to school one day, my card would be scanned, my picture and record would come up, and I would get a late slip. If I were in the hallways during my spare without a hallpass and a vice-principal noticed, the vice-principal could read my number over a walkie-talkie to the office, and find out if I really do have a spare. I want to take out a book from the library? They scan the card, and all the date related information is logged (overdue books in the library can cause students in computer courses much grief, as overdue books disable accounts (and stop students from getting the required texts for their other classes)).

        The only advantage to this is that if some student forgets their password for the network, all that has to be done is look at the card and enter in the number. At least this year the armed guards are gone (but the security cameras all over the place still give me the creeps) from my ordinary public high school (note: this school is in a Canadian suburb (but not a Torontonian one)).
      • They're using subdermal chips on animals now -- basically, the guts of a smartcard yanked out and put in an ear or something. Cheaper, easier, and can be handled in an automated manner, unlike brands or tattoos.

        And maybe someday people will get this. Of course, at first it will be a convenience, like the first credit cards, and become more and more inconvenient not to have...
      • Where, praytell, would you put a tattoo on a cow?

        It seems to me the current system of hi-vis ear tags is MUCH faster and more efficient than a tattoo, which you couldn't see anyway because cows have FUR. How are you going to get the cow to sit still through a tattoo session anyway? Drug her? Let's see how PETA likes THAT. I'm afraid the livestock application of this is just not feasible at all. Humans only.

    • It really is possible to solve all of these problems with additional hardware and software but obviously it's not being done here. It's possible to get pressure sensors of varying sensitivities so handling depth is not all that difficult. You can do a calibration of just a couple of marks in an area which will be filled in to determine how the skin takes the ink. A camera and some hip custom image recognition software can be used to determine how well all of this is coming out.

      As for what color looks like what on who, I'd personally set the machine up to mix its own inks, or pick another color where that is not possible, I'm not up on tattoo ink. Then I'd have a cleaning position where it would change colors, similar to an inkjet printer.

      The only thing I haven't figured out is blood. I imagine in the future you would have some kind of transparent coating on the skin that would mostly solve the problem for you.

      In the end this will probably end up being best done by a machine which mimics the human arm in important details to get a similar level of freedom, and a more complex sensor package at the end of the arm. A palm pilot won't have enough processing power to handle the details so one will need something more closely akin to an actual PC. A high-end one.

    • ok I see this as something that has real potential to change the world of body art. This could be as big as the first electric guns. The electric gun made tatt's hurt less and easier to give. This will ( if developed far enough) make pretty much anybody able to put a tatt on somebody regardless of their ability to draw perfect lines. It will not replace the artist( you still have to have a design) and a techinician will be needed to operate the machine safely. However people who have little artistic ability will be able to put ink on skin and have it look great.
      Another thing about tatt's is that the artist can't erase. This could allow talented artists to produce much better looking work in a program( simular to photoshop ) then have the robot copy it EXACTLY on to the skin. More so software could be made to replicate a model of the subjects skin, virtual skin per se, and it could be included in the initial design.

  • Heres the problem, (Score:5, Interesting)

    by papasui ( 567265 ) on Sunday December 01, 2002 @10:39AM (#4787525) Homepage
    When you got to a tattoo shop and say I want this tattoo the artist makes it and puts a bit of their style into it and it comes out unique to you. This robot will probably create the exact same tattoo for everyone that picks one out of a book.
    • Eh. If you read the article you'll see that it CLAIMS that the tattoo-bot creates its own designs. As in some sort of wacky design generation procedure. You don't actually get to pick a design at all. The idea of a tattoobot is kinda cool in some ways, but the idea that I'd let a pseudorandomly generated design that a fucking Palm Pilot came up with be permanently etched on my skin is so laughable as to not even qualify for being funny.


      In short, this story is either pure fiction, stretched from truth until it was barely recognizable or just outright bollocks. I'm sure you could find volunteers to get tattoos from a machine if they could pick it, but who is gonna wander by a booth at some show and say, gee, it seems like a great idea to get a randomly generated crooked-ass-R shape tattooed onto my arm permanently. Might as well let a meat grinder make a random design on your hand.

  • I was wondering how permanent this tatoo would be. After a careful study of the picture he is IMHO using a BIC pen to do the tatoo.

    Ech Nyh!
  • DO you think the Pocket PC would require activation (taking a small blood sample) before applying the tattoo?
    • A PPC-based tatoo robot would of necessity sync the graphic from a Windows machine, no question. The EULA for a PPC-based tatoo robot would require a royalty for every tat applied (the software would be licensed for X tattoos), and would add a Windows logo to the lower-right side of the graphic. And randomly, roughly every fourth tattoo would be a plain bright blue square. But when it worked, the colors would be fantastic.

  • The Harrow... (Score:5, Informative)

    by B3Geek ( 313588 ) on Sunday December 01, 2002 @11:28AM (#4787692)

    '...appears to do its work with uniform regularity. As it quivers, its points pierce the skin of the body which is itself quivering from the vibration of the Bed. So that the actual progress of the sentence can be watched, the Harrow is made of glass. Getting the needles fixed in the glass was a technical problem, but after many experiments we overcame the difficulty. No trouble was too great for us to take, you see. And now anyone can look through the glass and watch the inscription taking form on the body. Wouldn't you care to come a little nearer and have a look at the needles?'

    The explorer got up slowly, walked across, and bent over the Harrow. 'You see,' said the officer, 'there are two kinds of needles arranged in multiple patterns. Each long needle has a short one beside it. The long needle does the writing, and the short needle sprays a jet of water to wash away the blood and keep the inscription clear. Blood and water together are then conducted here through small runnels into this main runnel and down a waste pipe into the pit.'

    (excerpted from In The Penal Colony, Franz Kafka, 1919)

  • Great... (Score:1, Troll)

    by hitzroth ( 60178 )
    Somebody hooked up a plotter to a PalmPilot and used a tatooing needle for a pen. Just what the world needs.

  • The system is only capable of tattooing arms, what about people who wish to have a big dragon tattooed on their chest? Or a large skull on their back?? What about MOM with an anchor on their ass???

  • to toughTat
    draw pick [ snake eating rat [ "born to fight dinosaurs till jesus comes back or I die" ][ puppies ][ motorcycle with flames shaped like satan ]
    if :badass > 10 [toughTat]
    end

    (nods to Steve Purcell [amazon.com])

  • The Windows Release? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Chembryl ( 596546 ) on Sunday December 01, 2002 @12:08PM (#4787867)
    Will someone please start a sourceforge project to get this ported to Windows? I can't wait to see people with BSOD permanently displayed on their bodies.
  • 'da pain, da pain'
  • ... people will unknowingly be getting tatoos that say "All of your arm are belong to us".

    -S

  • Of course it will also "print" out a EULA as well.

  • 2 years too late.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by LinuxHam ( 52232 ) on Sunday December 01, 2002 @12:29PM (#4787974) Homepage Journal
    He missed a big market for people wanting to get the DeCSS code tattooed on them.. I'd like to see a collection of ThinkGeekish one-liners or icons..

    the I/O power button right over your heart..
    chmod +x /bin/laden..
    "tattoo" in binary..
    WTF?
    STFU
    the LNX or MP3 oval sticker
    foo on one arm and bar on the other (or knuckles like jake & elwood)..

  • Grrrr (Score:2, Interesting)

    by CharlesV ( 22919 )
    I had this idea two months ago... PROOF! [dumbrella.com]

    Can I sue for prior art or somesuch?
  • Maybe I'll get this robot to do my next full body tattoo-- the EULA.
  • First off, the Palm based idea is great for a quick, "gee that's cool," but once I saw the tatoo I was compelled to agree with a previous poster that it looks like child scribble. Throw in the notion that you can't pick the tatoo that will be on your body for ever and this quickly loses its wow-factor. While this is a good step in the direction of computer assisted tatooing (CAT?) it seems like there would be a better way of doing this.

    I'm sure you are all familliar with monogram setups. A simple desktop computer with some software can run a device used to monogram full multicolor designs on shirts and hats. Import an image, hit a couple of buttons and you have your business logo on your shirt. Why can't something like this be applied to tatooing? Using multiple needles (one for each color) and a scanner, the customer could get whatever design they want. If they didn't like the library of images on the computer, just scan in your custom picture.

    Sure there would be some nuances to work out, but if this guy can get a Palm to do it....
  • I guess it's time for those production-line barcode tattoos to become commonplace, eh?
  • Did anyone read it, Kafka's http://www-ec.njit.edu/~pro3/NJIT/Options/Opt-S'98 Camp/Kafka/Kafka-00.html ?

    What a convenient tool for bar coding or worse. Low tech ID cards for prisons? police states?

  • Disturbing... (Score:2, Funny)

    by CoolVibe ( 11466 )
    Seeing a microsoft VS ad with this story.

    (leaves rest to reader's imagination)

  • Personnally, I would not trust something that has this little power. Build me a tattoo gun running on an 8 way Xeon setup, then I might think about it.
  • This should be in the "things that never should have been invented" category.
  • Link with loads of pictures [highlighter.org] for you
  • ok, all penal colony's aside, i feel this could be a very prominent step in robotic surgery. with the advances being made both in medicine and robotics, i feel that one day surgeries could be performed with similar robots, differently equipped, of course. all we have to figure out now is how not to kill the person and automatically dump their body into a ditch.
  • ...and former body piercer ( as well as being a computer science major and sysadmin, just for background ), i don't think this thing has a chance in hell. As it currently exists, the quality is shoddy compared to the level of competency I expect from a professional tattoo artist. I'm sure that if money were thrown into it, a better tattoo robot could be built, but it would only be good for flash ( off the wall, FYI ) pieces, and even then, it would lack the creative touches that make even a flash tattoo memorable. A lot of people get custom tattoos ( most of mine are ) that will never be worn by anyone else, so the overhead to draw the sketch, then input it to a program to set the robot ( or program the robot yourself ) is prohibitive. The body modification scene puts a heavy emphasis on art and style, and I don't see any shop owners running out to buy one of these.
    I wouldn't get a tattoo by a robot. I'm a total technofetishist, but I would miss the human interaction. I pick certain artists for their style of doing things. Someone really has to be into the style of the tattoo for me to get the work done. No machine can duplicate that.
    Now, for the police state implications, hell, they could have already invented it, but I think that's going to far, and even the people who accept ( largely through ignorance ) the post-911 shenanigans of the government agencies and police would balk at this. It's too sinister. If they could pull it off, they undoubtedly would have done so already.
    Just my $0.02.
    • you know, one of those magical things you can do with a computer is UPLOAD an image into another computer.

      Imagine working for hours in photoshop at the required resolution designing your own tattoo, emailing it to the robot, making an apointment, and seeing your creation reproduced exactly on your skin.
  • Some people will be getting tattoos that read, "An exception has occured in Kernel32.dll" or a flying Windows flag logo.

  • Reminds me of In the Penal Colony [njit.edu].
  • I have visions of my PDA crying out "The Plane boss!, the plane!!!"

    Or "the pain boss!!, the pain"

    RIP Herve

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