CATCH A SKETCH: Wacom's Inkling pressure sensitive pen lets you quickly make a sketch in ink on any sketchbook or standard piece of paper. A small receiver unit on the paper captures what you draw with the pen and you can later transfer its data directly to your computer. Files can include layers and can be transferred to Photoshop, Illustrator and similar software or saved in other formats such as jpg or PDF. The best of back of an envelope combined with computer power. Details on Wacom Inkling here and video here.
MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL: The New York Times isn't just a newspaper — it has a research lab too. One of their current projects is a smart bathroom mirror. Put an object such as a bottle of pills on the shelf and the mirror displays information about the drug and how you use it. Ask for coupons connected to a product on the shelf and the mirror displays what's available. You could also view news headlines or watch videos on the mirror, shop online or exchange messages with other members of the household. Just don't ask for its opinions on your appearance. Nieman Journalism Lab reports here.
OCR FOR THE BRAIN: I've often wished for a data port in the side of my head that would transfer what I was thinking directly to words on screen. Princeton scientists are now working on it. Well, more precisely, their fMRI research has allowed them to generate words from what their subjects are thinking about. They were able to match categories of words to images of brain activity while a subject was thinking about concrete objects. They found that by analysing brain scans they could predict a subject was thinking about vegetables, for example, rather than perhaps cows. They couldn't distinguish though whether the subject was thinking of carrots or celery. Fascinating,
interesting, engrossing, captivating, absorbing. ScienceDebate has more.
PIXELLICIOUS: Sharp's 8k4k HDTV has a 216 cm, 7680 by 4320-pixel display that they were showing off at the IFA trade show in Berlin. That's 16 times 1080p resolution. The problem comes though in creating suitable 8k images to display. Sharp believe their massive screen has potential for medical uses. Imagine the Cooking Channel on that. Yum. More at Dvice.com and video here.
STRETCH SCREEN: Engineers at the University of California, Los Angeles, created a fully stretchable organic light-emitting diode. It's made from carbon nanotubes and polymer electrodes layered onto a stretchable light-emitting plastic to produce a blue light. Their proof-of-concept device has its problems, losing conductivity if it's stretched too far or too often, but it's a useful starting point. Carbon nanotubes — is there anything they can't do? PhysOrg has here.