(Photo: coleman.ucsd.edu)

Remember how jealous you were that the title character in the movie Matilda could move stuff with her mind? She could float candy to her mouth and turn the record player on and off and exact elementary school revenge on mean headmasters, all by scrunching up her nose and thinking really hard. We're not quite there, but science is getting close: soon, temporary tattoos attached to your forehead could make you telepathic and telekinetic.

Brain implants that tap into your neural network to augment your cognitive and physical abilities are undoubtedly a fixture of the future landscape, but they demand invasive surgery. Temporary tattoos, being developed by electrical engineer Todd Coleman at UCSD, read brain activity and could soon send your brain's messages to remote computers, allowing you to manipulate drones hundreds of miles away.

The tattoos could also help you speak without ever saying a word. By placing them on your throat, they can pick up subvocal movements that allow people to communicate without actually speaking. "We’ve demonstrated our sensors can pick up the electrical signals of muscle movements in the throat so that people can communicate just with thought," Mr. Coleman told Txchnologist.

Now, when will Mr. Coleman enlist a hip tattoo artist to make these forehead tats look swag?