scanning

With regular felt pens, users are limited to the colors of the pens in a set. As you might have guessed, though, the Colorpik Pen is different – it can reproduce 16 million colors, which are scanned from the user's environment.

Engineers at Cornell University have developed a new wearable device that can monitor a person’s facial expressions through sonar and recreate them on a digital avatar. Removing cameras from the equation could alleviate privacy concerns.

It’s an unfortunate truth that weapons and explosives in public places are an increasing problem. But many screening technologies are bulky and expensive, and require staff to operate. Now a new study has found a way to tap into a type of signal that’s already ubiquitous in public places – Wi-Fi.

While most cyclists like to think that they're pretty good at spotting road hazards, the fact is that no one can watch the asphalt all the time. That's why Byxee was created. It scans the road in front of the bike, alerting the rider to obstructions.

QromaScan is an app and physical lightbox combo which makes it easy to digitize and organize printed photos using an iPhone and voice recognition. The system is currently looking for funding on Kickstarter.

The infrared sensor installed on the ESA’s Proba-V satellite is being adapted for use back home. While it’s currently being used to provide pictures of Earth’s flora, its creators believe it’s well suited to applications such as scanning for skin diseases and spotting defects in production lines.