The new technology appeared in a Sony patent filing that describes how engineers in the company’s Tokyo research unit developed wireless headphones that rely on electrical signals sent through the body. The goal of the project was to design a body transmission system “with secrecy, with low power consumption, and without interfering with another communication system in a neighborhood.”

Engineers turned instead to the human body, which can transmit electrical data between a pair of electrodes on the skin. Unfortunately, when people think about strapping metal electrodes to their skin, “Frankenstein” comes unavoidably to mind, so Sony tried to make the system more consumer-friendly. They did it by encasing the transmitting electrode in a conducting fabric, and by developing it in such a way that it only needs to be close to the skin—not touching it at all times.

Source: arstechnica