Writing

Gadget freaks don't just like multitools – they're also big on fancy pens. If you're one of those folks, you might want to check out the titanium-bodied Dragon Pearl. The refillable ballpoint pen is warrantied for 100 years and a million clicks.

A clever team out to "turn unconventional ideas into practical and unique products" has crafted a lightweight, slimline notebook that lets you write, erase and write again, bridging the gap between traditional paper pads and digital note-taking apps.

This is quite possibly the most over-engineered pen of all time, and it looks like it's straight out of a spycraft lab. The Hancept Zero Mk2 is a 2-mm-thick contraption that can slip into a credit card slot, and magically fold into a hexagonal pen.

Along with Schrödinger’s Cat, the Infinite Monkeys Theorem is one of the most famous thought experiments. A new study, with tongue firmly in cheek, has calculated that you might be waiting seven googol years for your Shakespeare.

Marlboro & Kane from London has a thing for shrinking tools down to the smallest size possible while still making them functional. The company's latest mini marvel lets you have a pen – and a bit more functionality – always at hand.

If you want to concentrate on your writing, you probably shouldn't be using a computer that's connected to the distracting internet or that's always sending alerts. That's where the BYOK comes in, as it doesn't let you do anything other than write.

Historians have discovered what may be the world's first decimal point, in an ancient manuscript written 150 years before its next known appearance. There have been many ways to split integers, but this little dot has proven uniquely powerful.

For many people, taking notes using a pen and paper will always be easier and more intuitive than typing. The Nuwa Pen allows them to keep doing so, but it also digitizes what they've written for subsequent sharing and searchability.

To aid research into the history of human writing, DeepMind has now turned its AI technology to the task of restoring incomplete ancient texts, where it has performed with an impressive degree of accuracy.

While it would be great if teachers could spend lots of time with each of their students, the fact is that children often end up doing most of their handwriting exercises unsupervised. A new system may help address that problem, using a "smart" pen.

In 1945, the first successful ballpoint pen went on sale in the United States and Britain. Initially seen as an expensive novelty, the Biro soon went on to become not only a part of our everyday lives, but one that revolutionized how we communicate.

A new study suggests handwriting on paper leads to greater brain activity and memory retention than using a stylus on a tablet. The researchers hypothesize the spatial details of writing on paper may explain why it enhances the encoding of information.