Somehow under the impression that people don't spend 100% of their time holding, looking at, or anxious because they are not holding and looking at their cell phones, Nokia has filed a patent for a message-alert skin tattoo that could make the old "My phone was set to silent," excuse a thing of the past.

The patent, first noticed by a reporter from Unwired View, proposes creating a vibratable tattoo design out of ferromagnetic ink.
The tattoo would act as a receiver for magnetic waves emitted from a user's phone, sending "a perceivable stimulus" (think a small pulse or itch) whenever someone jus wantd 2 c wuts up w/u.

According to the application, the stimulus could be customized to different vibration frequencies, intensities, and sequences, depending upon the type of digital communication received. For example, a user might feel one long pulse when he or she received an email, but three short ones if his or her phone battery were about to die. Users would, in theory, be able to set different notification alerts for different individuals, similar to customizable ringtones.

For the reluctant cyborg, the patent application also outlines a plan for creating a skin-adhesive notification "sticker" that would utilize the same magnetic field technology to enable phone-user interaction, with the added benefit of not having a goddamn text-alert tattoo permanently branded onto your skin like a crazy person.

[Image via Getty]