Technology can be beautiful

This is a pen called “D:Scribe”, a design by Reuben
Png and was featured on the Yanko Designs
blog:

I personally prefer to write with pen and paper. However, I end up
eventually transferring it to the computer for all the goodness of
digital material (rewritable, linkable, searchable, backup-able, etc.)
With this pen, you can have the best of both worlds… and it looks
awesome!

I so wish I could get this right now.

Or one of these high tech
napkins
designed by Avery Holleman:

Just scribble on these foldable plastic napkins and it’ll
automatically be synced with the computer. Imagine kids drawing
together separately but the picture being simultaneously updated in
each of their napkins. Oh, and they don’t need batteries.

I was impressed with the “Window to the
World”
designed by Mac Funamizu:

Imagine being able to point at anything – whether it is a building,
a book or a person, and immediately getting back information on what
it is or store details about it. Perfect when you’re lost in a new
city or you’re simply reading a book and want to understand new words
or historical names without being forced to flip through a dictionary
or visit Wikipedia on a traditional computer and browser.

When I’m at this, I’m lusting over the Nokia
Morph.
If you haven’t seen it already, you must check out their concept video
(showcasing the amount of thought they’ve put into this already):

It’s truly amazing what the human mind can imagine. And what we can do
with technology.

Update: And amazingly close to what I was wishing for is Pranav Mistry’s Quickies project at the MIT Media Lab (via Nirav).

When I’m working on a problem, I never think about beauty, I think
only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the
solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
— R. Buckminster Fuller