More specifically, they have developed an anti-theft car seat that can effectively identify the person sitting in it. The seat itself is outfitted with 360 sensors and it measures the pressure applied at each of these sensors, generating a 3D representation of the weight and weight distribution. The way you sit is like a fingerprint.

The pressure information read by each sensor is then sent to a central laptop, which can then take all that aggregate information to identify key data and identify the driver. The researchers at Tokyo’s Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology say that this system is 98% accurate for identifying drivers. There’s just one huge problem. After a few holiday feasts, your bum signature may be a little heftier than normal. In any case, their goal is to see this tech in consumer-ready cars within the next two or three years.

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As a journalist, I have spent many hours working on illustrations and graphics that started out as doodles on a sketchpad. Scanning the image and then importing it into Illustrator or Photoshop isn’t difficult, but it is time-consuming, especially if I have to retrace the image to manipulate lines.

The new Wacom Inkling should make things a lot easier for artists, illustrators, graphic designers and pretty much everyone who doodles on real paper with a ballpoint pen and then needs to get it onto a computer. With the Inkling, you use the included ballpoint pen to doodle whatever your heart desires, and a wireless receiver stores the sketch digitally. The receiver can be clipped to the edge of standard paper or sketchbooks, as long as you’re using them on flat and rigid drawing surfaces.

Then, when you’ve finished drawing, you just hook up the receiver to your computer via USB to transfer the digital files. Files are opened with the Inkling Sketch Manager software where you can manage layers or change file formats to JPEG, TIFF or PDF and then open the fully layered files in Photoshop or Illustrator.

Yes, we know ink-to-digital pens are nothing new, but the pressure sensor technology of the Inkling is pretty neat. The gadget has 1024 levels of pressure, and pressure variations all appear in the digital version of the drawing. You can export your doodles as a vector illustration to Adobe Illustrator, which will allow you to re-work your lines in any way you want. That sounds pretty good to me.

The Wacom Inkling comes with a pen, receiver, rechargeable batteries, four spare pen ink cartridges, charging case and the Inkling Sketch Manager Application, which can be stored in the Inkling receiver. The Wacom Inkling will be available in the middle of September for $199.

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