Pens Get Smart But Will They Last Forever? - GroupOne Consulting, Inc.

September 3rd, 2014 / Blogs

There’s nothing more old school than pen and paper, but old school meets high tech when it comes to reimagining writing instruments. The Ivy Guide is a high tech translator tool that turns any pen into a translator and even recharges with a USB port. Engineers at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign developed a pen that writes with silver nanoparticle ink and draws functional circuitry. The Scribble Pen puts 16 million different colors at the user’s disposal with a color sensor and microprocessor.

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“Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky” and now the 4.Ever Pininfarina Cambiano inkless pen. Made by the same Italian car design firm based in Cambiano, Italy that designs for Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, Maserati, and Fiat, the aluminum and wooden writing instrument lets users write, sketch, and doodle without ink or lead by simply oxidizing paper with the patented metallic alloy ethergraf instead of laying liquid on it.

The pen tip was invented by the Italian stationery company Napkin and the body was designed by Pininfarina. The $120 price tag is for being completely handmade in Italy by master craftsmen at Pininfarina. The pen comes with a notebook of stone paper made from stone powder, decorated with original sketches of the Cambiano concept car.

The inkless pen makes markings that are permanent and smudge proof and eco-friendly. But will the pen let users write forever? How will we know? If you believe a Google engineer, we might last forever ourselves…and Pininfarina has made sure we’ll have a working writing instrument with us. “You can’t take it with you” suddenly rings hollow when there’s a pen like this.

Written by Chris Wiegman