MC10, a startup in Cambridge, MA, is developing a technology that will allow digital circuits to be embedded in bendable, stretchable materials, which allows exploration of entirely new form factors for electronics — including a form of “electronic skin.”
 
The company states on its Web site: “We take conventional high-performance electronics and turn them into body-integrated form factors that stretch, bend and twist seamlessly with our bodies and the natural world… Our devices incorporate silicon devices thinned to a fraction of the width of a human hair. These chips, combined with stretchable metallic interconnects, are further combined with elastic rubberlike polymers to form complete powered systems that sense, measure, analyze and communicate information.”
 
Flexible electronic circuits, aka "epidermal electronics," containing a collection of sensors can be applied directly to the skin like a thin Band-Aid or a temporary tattoo. The latest MC10 prototype is applied directly to the skin using a rubber stamp and can be covered with spray-on bandage to make it more durable and waterproof enough to withstand sweating or washing with soapy water. The thin electronic mesh stretches with the skin and can monitor data from the brain, muscles, heart, temperature, movement, hydration and strain. It lasts up to two weeks before the skin's natural exfoliation causes it to come away.