E-skin

Researchers at University of California, Berkeley have created the first user-interactive sensor network on flexible plastic. The new electronic skin, or e-skin, responds to touch by instantly lighting up. The more intense the pressure, the brighter the light it emits. The experimental samples of the latest e-skin measure 16-by-16 pixels, within each pixel sits a transistor, an organic LED and a pressure sensor. In addition to giving robots a finer sense of touch, the engineers believe the new e-skin technology could be used to create things like wallpapers that double as touchscreen displays and dashboard laminates that allow drivers to adjust electronic controls with the wave of a hand.