27 June 1998

Wired gadgets

Technology is increasingly being distributed around the body: a watch on the
wrist, a phone in the pocket, headphones on the ears and a belt-mounted
computer. Italian company Buratto hopes to connect all these devices (EP 824
889) using the human body as an electromagnetic waveguide. Skin has an outer
layer, the epidermis, of living cells and dead cell debris, and a lower dermis
of fibrous proteins like collagen. The epidermis is damp with perspiration and
acts as an electrical conductor, which allows the devices to communicate.