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Just reading Slashdot and some interesting links that it provides, as you normally do, and I came across the IDEA awards, and this interesting paintbrush.
http://www.idsa.org/idea/idea2005/g1306.htm
Now to me it seems like a nice clever little idea, but what do you artists think of it? Would it actually be useful to you in your normal work?
I guess the digital paintbrush would be a better tool if it acted like a pen on a tablet so that you could have a large digital canvas and then paint to it normally like you would an oil canvas or something.
This paintbrush might have its uses in home decorating and areas such as that where people could select different surfaces they liked and see how they would go in their yet-to-be-made kitchen etc.
It's a digital eyedropper? It will "allow people to take the color, texture and movement of any physical object and to immediately draw with that attribute". I'm not sure how useful that would really be when you can easily make the colour you want through sliders in your favourite paint package. As for grabbing textures, well, I'm sure a handy digital camera would do a better job, but I don't think a lot of people would find many practical uses for grabbing textures and painting with them.
My initial thought when I saw the picture was "awesome! They've invented a digital paint brush!", and that would be unreal. I'd love to learn how to hold a brush and paint digitally really well, with strokes and whatnot replicating what a real paint brush would do (and to not have to pay for expensive paints and oils as well while practising). I get cramped fingers when I draw/paint with the tablet pen after a short while.