Author Margaret Atwood has published poetry, thrillers, romance, SciFi, kids’ books – you name it, she has it.

Now she has done something different – she has created a device which allows writers to sign books remotely. At the receiving end, you just need a video screen and the document being signed. At the author’s end, you need video conferencing facility, an electronic writing tablet, and a magnetic pen. These two ends will be connected via an internet feed. According to Ms Atwood, LongPen, as it is called, reproduces every stroke that you have made, with exactly the same pressure.

A demo of the product was done by her sister (Alice Munro) by signing some of her (Alice Munro’s – she is a well-known author in Canada) books using LongPen.

So far, the pen has shown mixed results during demonstrations, but Ms Atwood thinks it is ready for the market.

Update: There is something which Margaret Atwood has never written – a Western!

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No smoke or light without fire? Usually yes, but the company Nano Chemical Systems invented a material which will emit light, without any accompanying heat!

So, essentially, there is no heat (or fire, for that matter) – and yet, you get light. The scientific term for this is “chemiluminescence”. Current man-made chemiluminescence reactions have very low efficiency.

Using nanotechnology, Nano Chemical Systems invented a process which improves the efficiency of chemiluminescent material greatly. And, the light emitted is amplified using nano-materials, so that it appears brighter. And, the best part is, after a couple of hours of providing light, the material disappears! Yes, there is no residue, according to Nano Chemical Systems. The CEO of Nano Chemical Systems, Dr. Mathew Zuckerman, stated that they have filed for a patent already, and expects this invention to be a very important one.

Great work from the company. However, I do know of someone who has been doing the chemiluminescence trick for a long time – the firefly!!!

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