My love for kopi-o-kosong knows no bounds. Although the ultimate love of my life is Ipoh white coffee, freshly grounded from Kinta supermarket. The Ipoh girl in me is showing.

Ahem. Excuse me. This week I am coffeed. (Yes I made up a word. Shush.) And here to tell you about e-skin. Display.

Pardon me the coffee hyper has taken over. Let me explain better – this is a thin sheet of organic circuit that can be worn like a second skin. The sheet itself is an OLED display.

This was developed by a group of researchers in University of Tokyo, Professor Takao Someya and Dr. Tomoyuki Yokota at the university’s Graduate School of Engineering.

In their own words, this is an “ultrathin, ultraflexible, protective layer and demonstrated its use by creating an air-stable, organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display. This technology will enable creation of electronic skin (e-skin) displays of blood oxygen level, e-skin heart rate sensors for athletes and many other applications.”

This e-skin is less than two micrometers thick (micro, not milli. MICRO) and is noted to be lighter than feather but also extremely resilient. Worn like a plaster, the display could be used to display health indications much like a fitness tracker could do, or as an electronic tattoo on your skin.

I believe researcher Professor Someya said it better than I can ever do. Here is what he said in the press release.

“The advent of mobile phones has changed the way we communicate. While these communication tools are getting smaller and smaller, they are still discrete devices that we have to carry with us,” says Someya. He continues, “What would the world be like if we had displays that could adhere to our bodies and even show our emotions or level of stress or unease? In addition to not having to carry a device with us at all times, they might enhance the way we interact with those around us or add a whole new dimension to how we communicate.”

If you think about it, we hear more and more from tech manufacturers about foldable displays, flexible displays, and recalling Samsung’s April Fool’s joke – a flexible processor. If these were all reality – we could very realistically have sci-fi type devices implanted or attached to our bodies that can be used for communications and tracking. That means we won’t be inconvenienced when we “forget our phones” or “break the screens”.

Of course before that, let’s be real. There is still much to be done in tech, let alone wearable, attachable, implantable tech. All is well and good when we’re just talking about microchips – a full circuit though? The human bodies have limitations and we have yet to fully understand how electronics interacting with different organic parts of our body might work, discounting degradation of materials over time.

So while that is an amazing thought to rethink how tech can be integrated into our lives in the future – You won’t be watching movies directly on your skin anytime soon. We can always hope though?

OK. That’s all for this instalment. Boss kira!

(And if you really want to say hi to this writer, send coffee.)

Full paper on the research available here. More from Uni of Tokyo here.