The gadget above looks like a torture device. It’s called Auto Ink, basically a three axis Cartesian controlled robot that inks randomly selected religious symbols onto the user’s arm. It comes from San Jose based artist Chris Eckert who wanted to create a never-seen-before tattoo machine.

Just place your arm in the machine, hold onto the grip, pray and then trigger the main switch. The needle then positions itself above the skin and begins its work. The user gets to assign a religion with its corresponding symbol and then leaves everything up to the machine.

We thought we would take a look at some questionable gaming tattoos. The kind that are either a bad idea or not well thought out, or just plain wrong. Gamers love getting tattoos of their favorite characters, but sometimes, they just need a friend to stop them from making a horrible mistake.

Friends don’t let friends make bad tattoo decisions. Unless both of you have been drinking heavily anyway. Some of the images are NSFW. Click through to check them all out.

Over at Botropolis we have a compilation of awesome robot tattoos. If you’re gonna get some ink, consider getting something in the likeness of our future lords and masters. You never know, those who carry the mark of the bot may be spared on that future day of reckoning when the rest of us are all just charred corpses.

Scientists at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have been focusing on programmable tattoos for some reason and they’ve really taken the concept to whole new levels. The idea is to use hair-sized nanotubes embedded in the skin that would display an image of your choice. The image stays even after you turn off the power. I’m not sure if you can turn it off at need.

The Rensselaer eggheads see this as a social communication tool. If you are pissed off, it might display something appropriate, like a storm, which lets people know to stay away. On the other hand, if you are feeling great, it could display something appropriate for that as well. And what about all of you who write reminders on your palm? If the nanotubes are embedded in your hand, they could replace that ink and be more reliable. Seems pretty promising.