Perhaps many of you have imagined the future as a place crawling with antennas and emitters, due to the huge growth of wireless communications. And it's possible that this is exactly how it will look like, but it seems that the current means of transferring data might already have a very serious competitor, none other than the human body.

Thus, NTT Laboratories from Japan has announced that is currently testing a revolutionary technology, called "Red Tacton", which will use the electric fields generated by the human body as a medium for transmitting the information.

The Red Tacton chips, which will be embedded in various devices, contain a transmitter and receiver built to send and accept data stored in a digital format. The chip then takes any type of file, such as an MP3 music file or email, and converts it into a format that takes the form of digital pulses that can be passed and read through a human being's electric field. The chip in the receiving device reads these tiny changes and converts the file back into its original form.

Considering the possibilities offered by this technology, it's not impossible that in a few years time, we'll be able to download a ring tone for our mobile phone simply by touching an advertising panel in the street. However, according to Hideki Sakamoto from NTT, with Red Tacton sensors miniaturized and built into every type of device and product, the list of potential uses is endless.