Writing

Four-color ballpoint pens were once the height of versatility. Then came 10-color pens, which increased the color options but proved more than a handful for most. Now LA-based Cronzy Inc. is looking to broaden the all-in-one pen palette to more than 16 million colors with its Cronzy pen.

The Boogie Board line of e-writers has expanded its stable with two new models, the Jot 4.5 with Clearview and the Scribble n’ Play. Like other Boogie Boards, both use cholesteric liquid crystal display (LCD) technology, which allows users to easily write and erase with the press of a button.

The Smart Writing Set is Moleskine's latest crack at combining digital and analogue note taking tech to concoct the ideal experience for creatives looking for an alternative to scribbling on an iPad Pro or Galaxy Note tablet.

Richard Mille has turned its precision mechanical watchmaking skills to a fountain pen. The US$105,000 RMS05 runs off a self-winding Swiss movement to extend the hand-polished 18K white-gold nib automatically from the barrel at the press of a button.

Sometimes you may want to keep a digital record of your notes or sketches. If you haven't got access to a computer or you'd simply prefer to use a pen, however, digitizing your content can be problematic. The new Orée Stylograph pen, however, will digitize what you write or draw as you go.

There's plenty of smart pens that stream your scribbles to digital displays, but they typically require that you to write on a certain purpose-built materials. Phree aims to break free of such limitations by shooting a laser beam from its tip to allow writing on just about any surface.

A designer has created a rechargeable pen that can use any staining material as ink. Jessica Chan wanted to offer a non-disposable, environmentally-friendly option to people who like handwriting, drawing, etc. The pen is modular, easy to clean and uses a simple twist refill system.

A cheap but tough new electronic paper display can be written on with a magnet. It could be used in low-cost, lightweight electronic whiteboards as well as traditional classroom blackboards, and its creators hope that it will eventually reduce our dependence on real paper.

The symptoms of Parkinson's disease can sometimes lead sufferers to put down their pens forever. The ARC pen is a vibrating writing device that stimulates muscles in the hand, giving those with Parkinson's better control when putting pen to paper.

The latest book to join a growing library of digitally inspired writing platforms is Rocketbook, and it does so with an interesting twist. Further to shooting handwritten notes and doodles to the cloud, when it fills up users can stick the book in the microwave to wipe its pages clean.

While email has certainly made it easier to keep in touch, there's still something nice about receiving a hand-written letter. That's why Bond was created. It uses a pen-holding robot to create a "hand-written" note in your handwriting, which is then mailed to a recipient of your choice.

We communicate with stories, and now we're training our computers to do the same. By writing sets of rules and instructions of varying complexity, artificial intelligence experts can enable computers to write stories both real and fictional – with big implications for the future.