This is probably the oldest bit of news you’ll ever see get posted on CrunchGear, but I came across this today and just had to share. See, it’s a robotic tattoo machine that’s being powered by a Palm IIIxe (maybe?) that’s simply running Palm OS.
Freddy, as Niki Passath likes to call it was debuted in Vienna back in 2002. It’s unclear what other equipment is used in this mad scientist project, but Niki was the sole guinea pig for Freddy. On the plus side, whatever he drew on the Palm’s digitizer was what was tattooed on him.
“It was a hard job because the only person I could test it on was myself which was painful but a good incentive to get it right as soon as possible.
“He’s an artist of course so he always decides what design the person is going to get, they can’t choose. But I haven’t had any complaints yet.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU-niK-gc9g&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0]
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via Palm Info Center

