technabob » ink

color picker pen might make that box of 120 crayons obsolete

lambert v. — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:02:57 +0000

When I was in grade school, crayons served as our introduction to the art of one-upmanship – you have a box of 8? Well your seatmate has a box of 16! So you tell your mom to buy you a box of 24, but – oh snap! - your rival’s already upgraded to a box of 48! It just escalated, even though we’d usually end up not using the weird colors, like Flesh, which looked like raw bacon. It was a cold war of crayons. Korean designer Jinsu Park might be able to put a stop to the senseless wax-hoarding with her Color Picker pen concept.

The Color Picker pen works just like the eyedropper tool in Photoshop. Use the rear end of the pen to scan the color of the objects around you, and then pen imitates the color by mixing red, green and blue ink, thus negating the need for an arsenal of crayons.

Or will it? A bunch of commenters at designboom have pointed out that the CMYK (Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Black; ‘K’ is used for black because blue already took ‘B’) color system is better suited for print compared to RGB, which is more useful for digital media. Back to the drawing board I guess.

Another designboom commenter, joolz, linked to a similar concept has already been developed by a bunch of MIT students back in 2004. It’s called the I/O Brush, and like the Color Picker pen it scans surrounding objects for color, but it can also scan for texture and even movement. However, the comically large brush is more complicated because it requires a digital canvas i.e. a touch screen, meaning it doesn’t produce real print.

[via Neatorama]

ultraviolet spy pen lets you write and read invisible messages

technabob — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 22:11:13 +0000

Here’s a handy way to keep a secret. Just grab one of these ultraviolet invisible ink pens, and you can leave yourself hidden messages that you can easily decode using the same pen you wrote them with.

Each pen has a built-in ultraviolet LED light, you can read messages that are invisible to the naked eye. It’s perfect for writing down personal information like your PIN number or passwords – assuming of course that nobody else has a black light lying around, and you can actually remember where the heck you wrote your note. Keep in mind that while the ink is “invisible”, it’s also permanent, so don’t be writing nasty bathroom stall limericks on the walls of your house unless you plan on living with them in perpetuity.

If you want to exchange secret notes with a friend, buy a couple and play a game to see if you can find all the hidden messages you leave for each other. Of course, running around with a UV light in hand, you might come across other evidence of foul play you didn’t intend to. Don’t mind that blood spatter – it’s nothing.

The Invisible Ink Spy Pen is available over at Perpetual Kid for $9.99 (USD).

pac-man gets the mosaic treatment

technabob — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:38:14 +0000

Here’s a piece of art any retro game fanatic would be proud to hang on their wall. It’s a handmade Pac-Man mixed media piece, using teeny ceramic tiles in place of pixels.

Perhaps inspired by the oh-so-awesome Ms. Pac-Man bathroom, this piece entitled Perpetual Pac-Man would look great in any game room. Or if you’re a serious retro gaming geek – hanging in your bedroom. Of course, it might freak me out to see Blinky staring back at me with his googley eyes in the middle of the night; “Don’t eat me, man. Eat the cherries! Eat the cherries!”

Created by Donna over ArcadeArt, Perpetual Pac-Man measures in at 20″ (w) x 8″ (h) and is handcrafted from acrylics and urban ink on canvas, then hundreds of individual colorful tiles made by the artist herself.

It’s just one of many fun old school arcade-inspired pieces over in ArcadeArt’s Etsy shop. Be sure to swing by and check it out.

inkjet cartridges get a personality

technabob — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:25:26 +0000

These wacky collectible desktop figurines get their inspiration from inkjet printer cartridges.

Mark James’ Cardboy CMYK Cartridge critters comes in the four familiar printer ink colors, cyan, magenta, yellow and black.

The 4-inch tall figures are available individually for £5.95 (appx. $12 USD) each, or as a complete set for £19.95 (appx. $41 USD).

Unlike regular printer ink cartridges, you won’t have to replace these guys every twenty pages.

[via Pocket-lint]

zink: color printing without ink

technabob — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 22:38:56 +0000

While most conventional printers use ink, toner or wax to print, these new portable printers from Zink will print full color images without applying any substance to the surface of the paper.

Instead of ink or toner, Zink’s compact printers will use a special paper, embedded with color dye crystals that are activated when heat is applied. Thanks to the simplicity of their design, Zink hopes to embed their printers directly into digital cameras, cell phones and media players in the future.

UPDATE: I’ve posted a video below (via Gizmodo) which shows a Zink printer in action…

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The portable printer features Bluetooth connectivity and produces 2×3 waterproof prints in about a minute each. Word on the street is that the printer will cost about $99, with the special paper running about 20 cents per print.

[via Ministry of Tech]

lapazz d-note digital notepad with color recognition

technabob — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 04:30:24 +0000

I’ve seen a number of paper-to-digital note recorders over the years, but this is the first time I’ve come across one that can actually recognize multiple ink colors. The LaPazz D-Note DNA500 from UC-Logic is a small notepad that records your handwritten notes on the computer, and can automatically recognize blue, red and black ink colors (special pens are required for this feature) when storing digital versions of your notes.

The D-Note can record from A5 (148mm