All the Cool Cyborgs Are Implanting LED Lights Beneath Their Skin

LED implants are the perfect gift for the futurist in your life.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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If hoverboards and Marswater didn’t quite satisfy your insatiable thirst for a sleeker, less Earth-like future, then this should certainly do the trick: LED implants. Grindhouse Wetware, a Pittsburgh-based biohacking collective, reportedly performed three implantations "in conjunction with" a simultaneous operation in Dusseldorf. As noted in Motherboard's fascinating deep-dive, the procedure only takes about 15 (admittedly gory and almost impossible to watch) minutes.

"Our first prototype, the Circadia, was so crazy that I could only use myself as a guinea pig in good conscience,” Tim Cannon, Grindhouse Wetware co-founder, tells Motherboard. "But we produced a miniseries of the Northstar from the start to let additional team members and other people we know enjoy the chips." Once the user activates the device, the Northstar can provide backlight for existing tattoos or "mimic bioluminescence." By Grindhouse’s estimates, the Northstar will "light up about 10,000 times" before its batteries lose all their power. Once the batteries pass away, the user must then have the device surgically removed due to the fact that the batteries can’t be recharged.

Though its current value is seemingly purely cosmetic, Grindhouse sees the potential for much greater things in the future. "I can’t really rely on my brain," says Cannon. "But I can rely on the data my body produces. Today our creations may still seem like niche products, but once we’ve succeeded at developing a cheap heart implant that automatically warns you before a heart attack, everyone will want our gadgets." Not to overuse an already clearly overused expression, but it's lit. It's definitely lit.

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