Gadgets that can digitally record things you write or draw on paper aren’t new, but Wacom just announced something far above the rest of the pack: the Inkling, which will be available in late September for a retail price of $200. It records an unbelievably nuanced 1024 levels of pressure, lets you write on any paper you want, can store thousands of pages at a time, and connects to your computer via USB to upload the pictures. But it isn’t just the craftsmanship and relatively low price point that’s making me squee like I just fell into a ball pit full of corgis. There’s also this:
You can import your drawing into Adobe Illustrator as a vector file. Frikkin’ vectors! This means that you can bend and tweak the individual strokes of your ink drawing as much as you like. It also means that you could scale up a tiny doodle and print it onto a billboard with no loss in quality. Once done, the resulting files can be opened in Photoshop, Illustrator, Autodesk Sketchbook or Sketchbook Designer on the Mac or PC. And even the case design is clever: The pen sits inside the oversized hinge, and the case itself is the charger (three hours of charging gives eight hours of use). [WIRED]
Now I know how Lonely Island Doctor Who feels. Oh, and there’s video. Of the Wacom Inkling, I mean, not of what I just did. (Well, technically, the latter may exist, but you have to subscribe to see more.)