Drawing

Imagine if you were working with a robot that could leave you written messages, or draw diagrams to explain concepts. Such a scenario has come a step closer to reality, as a university student has taught a robot how to copy what we write, and what we draw.

A London-based design team has combined a love of engineering, drawing and cameras to create one of the most elegant tools for drawing circles seen to date. Dubbed "Iris," this ingenious compass is part objet d’art, part engineering wonder, and part Spirograph for grown-ups.

​In a process similar to the pointillism style of painting, some pen-and-ink artists create drawings consisting of tiny dots and dashes. Belgian startup Dozendots has set out to make doing so easier, with its power-tipped Inki ballpoint pen.

Paper engineer Robert Sabuda has teamed up with the Leonardo da Vinci Robot Society to create the Drawmaton drawing machine that's based on a rumor, that da Vinci's so-called Robot Knight coudl not only sit, stand and hug guests at parties, but could also draw.

Archaeologists have uncovered what may be the oldest human-made drawings ever found. Discovered in a cave in South Africa, the cross-hatch pattern was drawn in red ochre and found to date back over 70,000 years, making the image more than 30,000 years older than the previous reigning champion.

As we discovered for ourselves during CES 2014, raising objects up from a flat surface using a 3D printing pen is not as easy as seasoned 3Doodlers make it look. Clearly, the earlier you start, the better. So WobbleWorks has launched educational creativity kits designed for use in schools.​

​A couple of years ago, design firm Carlo Ratti Associati showcased a system in which drones were used to draw images on walls. It was very clever, but perhaps not something that could become a commercial product. The company's Scribit wall-drawing robot, however, is intended to be just that.

​Google’s AI Experiments has been slowly dropping fascinating artistic or creative uses of its neural network code for some time now.​ The latest innovation from the program is Autodraw, a sketch-pad with a neural network that predicts what you are trying to draw and offers clip art alternatives.

The Chameleon Pen is an art pen, the ink color tone of which changes as you draw. Its makers are now back with Chameleon Pens Color Tops, that change between two completely different colors.​

​At CES this week, Dell unveiled a few nifty ideas, including the Canvas digital artist's workstation, a 32-inch monitor bursting with 8K resolution, a wirelessly chargeable 2-in-1, and a refresh of the company's other laptops, AIOs and monitors.

The newly-announced reMarkable “paper tablet” is designed to replace your ancillary papers – notes, sketches and documents included – in a single device that offers a convincing real-paper look and feel.

There’s an analogy to be made between the Lenovo Yoga Book and its namesake practice. Done well, yoga provides functional fitness for any task at hand. When poorly executed, it’s frustrating and injurious. The Yoga Book lands somewhere in between.