Architect Stylus Better Than Wacom Stylus?

As much as I really like my Wacom stylus, I'm glad there are alternatives that can give the Wacom digitizers a run for their money.

Aluminum-machined styluses are all the rage these days, it seems, with Arctic Accessories’s $23 Architect Stylus the latest in a long line of impeccably-designed devices. But while the Architect may take its cues from Adonit’s line of capped pens and the sleek figure of Wacom’s Bamboo, the Architect winds up being in a class all its own.

via macworld.com

Jaja Stylus Uses Sound Waves to Detect Pressure

The Jaja is intended to be a more precise stylus for the Apple iPad.

The company is trying to raise money on Kickstarter. If you like being the first to buy new gadgets, then you might want to help them out since the first 500 people will be able to buy the Jaja for $40.

If you like to sketch on your iPad, you know there are a bunch of styluses on the market and coming out which try to improve upon the drawing and painting experience in apps like ArtRage.

via technabob.com

Infinite Z Virtual Holographic 3D Display for Designers

Infinite Z has a zSpace product that uses a laser pen and 3D glasses to make you feel like you are designing in three dimensions. Pretty cool. I wish I could test one out. The price is steep though at $6000! I think I would still prefer a Cintiq 24HD.

At the recent “Autodesk University”, Infinite Z was there demonstrating their zScape product.  They call it a “virtual holographic display”, but from watching their video I would say it’s somewhat like a Wacom Cintiq with a 3D Display

Click here to watch the demo video.

zSpace - A Virtual-holographic Experience from Infinite Z on Vimeo.
via vizworld.com

Wacom Inkling Review

Crabfu offers his in-depth review of the Wacom Inkling

Watch the video review on boingboing.net or read it on crabfu.com!

My friend I-Wei Huang, who makes steam powered remote-controlled vehicles, and also designed all the characters in Sklylanders, reviewed the Wacom Inkling, a drawing pen that digitizes your sketches. He likes it, but has some problems with it.

via boingboing.net

Review of the Cintiq 24HD

You can find it on this site at Wacom Cintiq 24HD review.

Digital Signature Capture Solutions

To small business owners, it's time to upgrade to digital signature capturing. Who wants to keep track of a bunch of paper anyway?

Many industries are dependent on capturing a signature on a document as part of a transaction. For very small businesses the easiest way to get a signature is to have the person signing, to sign a paper form. However, this manual process means that the capture signature is often not able to be capture throughout the organization and stored for future retrieval.

via businessinsider.com

'Made in Japan' Brand May Be Threatened By Japan

I'm not sure how this will affect Wacom.

It could lower the tablet prices depending on where they choose to move manufacturing. Hopefully Wacom won't compromise on quality.

The "Made in Japan" brand is at a crossroads as more firms face a tough choice over whether or not to move production overseas to escape the impact of the relentless rise of the yen, say analysts.

According to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, some 46 percent of large manufacturers it surveyed in August said they would move production bases abroad if the yen stays around 76 yen against the dollar for half a year.

Currently near 77 yen to the greenback, the unit's strength risks causing the "collapse" of the Japanese auto industry, Toyota executive vice president Satoshi Ozawa said last week.

via google.com

New Wacom Bamboo Tablets Ad/Demo

I haven't had a chance to play around with the new Wacom Bamboo tablets, but here's the official advertisement for the new line. I especially like how you can add a wireless input option to all three for an extra charge. 

Wacom Bamboo tablet ad on Youtube

New Pen from Wacom: Chromopen

The new Wacom Chromopen is a great digitizer for choosing colors in your art design.

Point & Shoot Tablet Pen

As digi-painting application technology expands, so does the need for digital artistry tools. The Chromopen concept makes choosing colors for matte-painting a cinch. The user simply points and shoots the Chromopen’s built-in camera to catch colors directly from the scene they’re painting, simultaneously broadening their understanding of color tones. Genius!

via yankodesign.com

Asus BP121 has the Ability to Work with Absolute Software's LoJack

Asus Windows tablet adds Computrace LoJack security features

Asus announced a Windows tablet designed for business users, featuring a TPM (trusted platform module), Computrace LoJack readiness, and the Windows 7 Professional operating system. The Eee Slate BP121 includes a 1.33GHz Core i5 processor, a 12.1-inch display with 1280 x 800 resolution, a Wacom digitizer, solid-state storage, and a Bluetooth-interfaced keyboard, the company says.

Many vendors of Windows 7 tablets leave it up to the buyer's imagination as to whether the devices would be suitable for the enterprise. Asus, on the other hand, emphasizes the BP121's business credentials, citing a TPM, the inclusion of Windows 7 Professional (with domain join functionality), and the ability to work with Absolute Software's LoJack solution.

via windowsfordevices.com

Samsung Series 7 Slate

This Samsung PC tablet is very intriguing to me since I'm in the market for a new laptop and like the fact that it can be used as a stand alone or with a wireless keyboard.

Samsung isn't new to the tablet game, but the company's newest offering - the Samsung Series 7 Slate - may be exactly what buyers have been waiting for in Windows tablets. We went hands on with the new Series 7 Slate, and we were pleased with what we saw.

via pcmag.com

New Wacom Inkling is Like No Other Drawing Tablet

The Inkling is yet another excellent drawing tool from Wacom!

When it comes to tools for integrating freehand art into the digital workflow, Wacom remains the leader. Its tools aren't perfect--and certainly aren't cheap--but it's hard to find any more respected. And when it comes to drawing, nothing yet beats pen (or pencil) and paper for fluidity and portability. Wacom attempts to combine the best of both worlds with its Inkling, a pen and receiver combo that tracks your penstrokes for up to 50 sketches and uploads them to a computer for use with applications like Photoshop or Illustrator.

via news.cnet.com

ICEFIRE Medical Technology Uses Wacom Digitizer

I always find it interesting when I come across other uses for Wacom digitizers. This one is sure to help improve the medical field.

ICP Electronics Australia presents the ICEFIRE 10.4” Mobile Clinic Assistant, an IP64 compliant medical-use tablet PC, which is based on Intel and Windows open architecture.

The ICEFIRE 10.4” features dual mode input that utilises both WACOM digitiser and traditional resistive touch input with auto-sensing and auto-switching. The ICEFIRE also includes dual hot swappable batteries, wireless and advanced data acquisition technologies with inbuilt Gobi 2000 and RF technologies.

The ICEFIRE 10.4” Mobile Clinic Assistant can make wireless connections to WLAN and WAN and can be customised to meet the needs of point of care and other healthcare applications.  This allows the medical-use tablets to offer safer, more efficient and higher quality patient care in medical services.

The ICEFIRE 10.4” Mobile Clinic Assistant tablet PCs are available from ICP Electronics Australia and comes in an ergonomic and lightweight design.

via ferret.com.au

Gadget Works Like a Wacom

Not sure if the world is ready for this cool gadget, but maybe in a few more years when it's fully developed.

What you are seeing here is a type of interface that could easily be the future. Designed by Kei Nakatsuma, a PhD student at the University of Tokyo, it allows the user to use the back of their hand as a mouse pad and a finger as a mouse.
I think we used to dream of an era where everyone had a two-way wrist communicator like Dick Tracy, but the age of cellular phones makes that practically obsolete. An interface like this could bring that back.

via coolest-gadgets.com