Motorola patent indicates interest in electronic neck 'tattoo' that could be a microphone

Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Motorola Mobile division is working on Project Ara, an open-source program designed to bring modular smartphone design to the masses, but it also has other ideas up its sleeve, including an electronic neck "tattoo" that could serve as a way to send voice signals to smartphones. According to a patent application discovered by Engadget, titled "Coupling An Electronic Skin Tattoo To A Mobile Communication Device," such a tattoo would have a microphone with a transceiver and power supply put on a user's neck and then could directly capture sound "emanating from a throat" and send it to a smartphone (or a similar computing device) via Bluetooth, Zigbee or an NFC signal. Such work should not come as a surprise, since Regina Dugan, a former DARPA chief who leads Motorola's Advanced Technology and Projects group, disclosed in May that Motorola was working with a company called MC10 on such a tattoo device. Article