Digital art tools have gotten remarkably good at reading pressure and tilt, two of the three physical inputs that define how traditional artists handle a pen or brush. What’s remained elusive is the third one. The way a calligrapher twists a brush mid-stroke, or how a flat marker rotates to shift from wide edge to fine tip, hasn’t had a reliable digital equivalent for most current drawing hardware until now.
Wacom’s new Art Pen 2 addresses that directly. It’s the successor to the original Art Pen (KP701E) from 2010, a pen that already had a devoted following specifically for its 360° barrel rotation. The Art Pen 2 brings that same capability into Wacom’s current pen technology, combining rotation sensing with modern pressure and tilt detection in a tool built for serious digital drawing.
Designer: Wacom
Rotating the pen in your hand, a motion letterers and calligraphers rely on instinctively, now translates into the software canvas when used with compatible applications. The Art Pen 2 reads that rotational angle and adjusts brush behavior accordingly, so thickening a stroke or softening an edge becomes a matter of how the pen sits in your grip, not which menu you reached for last.
The technical foundation behind all that expressiveness is solid. The Art Pen 2 runs on Wacom’s battery-free EMR technology, so there’s no charge to manage mid-session. Three pen buttons handle workflow shortcuts, and up to 8,192 levels of pressure sensitivity cover everything from whisper-light gesture lines to heavy, decisive marks. A nib holder built into the barrel stores three spare tips for quick swaps.
Nib choice is also part of the picture. The pen ships with a Carbon Shaft POM (Polyoxymethylene) nib installed, a denser option suited to detailed, controlled work. Two additional types, standard POM Nibs and Felt Nibs, are available separately, each offering a different surface response that can shift the drawing experience considerably. All three nib types are exclusive to the Art Pen 2 and aren’t interchangeable with Pro Pen 3 nibs.
The Art Pen 2 sits alongside the Wacom Pro Pen 3 rather than replacing it. Where the Pro Pen 3 caters to artists who want physical customization, with interchangeable button plates, grips, and balance weights to fine-tune grip feel and center of gravity, the Art Pen 2 is built around expressive, rotation-sensitive drawing first. It’s a deliberately focused tool for a different kind of creative priority.
Compatibility covers a healthy range of current Wacom hardware. The Art Pen 2 works with the Wacom MovinkPad Pro 14, Wacom Intuos Pro (PTK470, PTK670, and PTK870), Wacom Cintiq 16 (DTK168), Wacom Cintiq 24 (DTK246), and Wacom Cintiq 24 touch (DTH246), with support for the Wacom Cintiq Pro lineup (DTH172, DTH227, and DTH271) arriving later this year.
Artists who’ve been using the original Art Pen for its rotation capability and waiting for it to work with current-generation Wacom devices finally have that option. The jump from the older KP701E to the Art Pen 2 also brings the full pressure sensitivity and EMR advances of today’s lineup, giving longtime fans of that rotation-based workflow a genuinely modern upgrade without giving up the expressiveness they’ve relied on.
Somewhere in your home, there’s likely a camera that used to mean something. A Nikon FM2 inherited from a parent, a Canon AE-1 found at a flea market, a Pentax K1000 that still smells faintly of old leather. These bodies were built with a precision and intention that most modern cameras rarely replicate. The feel of a metal shutter, the resistance of a manual aperture ring, the satisfying click of the film advance lever. None of that ever became obsolete. What became obsolete was the film inside.
Samuel Mello Medeiros decided to use that space where the film cartridge would go, and create a retrofittable module that turns any analog camera into a digital one. Medeiros’ module slides into the film chamber of any compatible 35mm film camera, and packs a Sony IMX571, a 26.1-megapixel back-illuminated APS-C sensor along with up to 256FB of internal storage, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and a rechargeable battery. Dubbed the “I’m Back Roll APS-C”, it’s designed to be compatible with cameras from Canon, Nikon, Leica, Pentax, Olympus, Minolta, and dozens of others. Just put the module into the film canister and you’re ready to shoot. The camera goes untouched. The shutter fires the same way it always did. Images accumulate on internal storage and transfer wirelessly once the shoot wraps. Nothing hangs off the body. Nothing changes on the outside. Future-proofing at its finest.
At the heart of I’m Back Roll is the Sony IMX571, a professional APS-C sensor used in astronomy cameras, where image quality is pushed to its absolute limits. Astrophotography demands sensors that extract clean signal from vanishingly faint sources, which requires exactly the qualities that make a sensor excellent for general photography: low noise, wide dynamic range, and clean performance at elevated ISO. The IMX571 is a back-illuminated design, meaning the photodiodes are exposed to light before the wiring layer rather than behind it, collecting more photons per pixel and delivering measurably better high-ISO output than front-illuminated sensors of equivalent resolution. At 26.1 megapixels, it is designed to preserve the optical character of classic cameras. The APS-C plane measures 23.4 x 15.6mm, producing a 1.5x crop factor, so a 50mm Nikkor on an F3 behaves as a 75mm equivalent, worth accounting for if your collection runs heavy on wide primes.
There is no rear display, making for pure, distraction-free photography. You use the camera as you normally would, setting focus, aperture, and shutter speed just like with film. When ready to shoot, you press the remote control button to activate the digital sensor, then immediately press the camera shutter release. You have roughly one to two seconds after activating the sensor to trigger the shutter. After a few shots, this movement becomes natural and intuitive. For those who prefer a cleaner approach, the new sync button lets you take photos with a single click, just like a normal analog camera, screwing onto the shutter if available, or fixing on top of the button. One press activates the system and triggers the camera instantly. No remote. No extra step. Think of it as just you retrofitting an electric motor on your existing analog bicycle – everything stays the same, but you get a remarkable performance bump.
The structure is CNC-machined aluminum, built for durability, heat dissipation, and full internal integration. Running a 26-megapixel sensor inside a sealed metal body with no active airflow is a genuine thermal engineering problem, and aluminum’s conductivity is doing real work here. The battery is compact, stable in power delivery, safe, and easy to replace, enclosed in a protective housing and connecting to the PCBA through a sliding rail system that allows easy and secure replacement. The battery itself takes the exact form factor of a 35mm film canister, sitting in the chamber exactly where your Kodak Ultramax would load, swapping out the same way. The module works like a film roll, approximately 4mm thick. I find the replaceable battery design to be the most quietly clever decision in the entire product. It asks nothing new of the photographer.
The I’m Back Roll is compatible with most 35mm film cameras, including Nikon (F, F2, F3, F4, F5, FM, FM2, FE, FE2), Canon (AE-1, A-1, AT-1, F-1, EOS series), Minolta (X-700, X-500, XG series), Pentax (K1000, LX, ME Super, Spotmatic), Olympus (OM-1, OM-2, OM-3, OM-4), Contax (139, RTS, G1, G2), Yashica, Leica M and R series, Fujica, Konica, Ricoh, Chinon, and Praktica. A dedicated solution was designed for Leica M cameras specifically, featuring a custom back with integrated sensor, no change to camera feel, and the full mechanical experience preserved. Your Leica stays analog, but becomes digital. A semi-transparent frame overlay shows the exact sensor area, using a very light adhesive that is non-permanent and easily removable, placed directly on the viewfinder window so you always know what is inside the final image. Cameras with vertically opening backs, including the Nikon F, Contax II, and Alpa, may require a dedicated back cover produced via 3D printing, though based on previous experience, only three models out of hundreds tested required this.
The I’m Back Roll captures RAW and JPEG, 4K video, and film-inspired color profiles. The fact that it captures 4K video is impressive, since shooting video on a Contax RTS through a Zeiss Planar T* 50mm f/1.4 is a creative proposition nobody had access to when that camera was in production. The unlocked stretch goal brings extra color profiles and film-inspired looks, plus a clean digital mode. The profile lineup covers Kodacolor, Kodak Portra, Tri-X 400, Fujifilm, Ilford HP5, Agfa Vista 200, Cinestill 800T, and Kodak Ektachrome E100, each tuned to the color science and tonal character of its namesake stock. Cinestill 800T carries its signature tungsten-halation glow, Tri-X delivers the high-contrast grain that defined a generation of photojournalism, and Portra’s skin-tone-saturated warmth translates faithfully. The optional external touchscreen display runs 2.5 inches at 400 x 712 pixels on an OLED panel, with up to 1000 nits of peak brightness, connected to the I’m Back Roll via a flexible flat cable.
Storage tiers run 64GB for everyday use, 128GB for creators who shoot more, and 256GB for maximum freedom, with Leica M versions for dedicated rangefinder users. Every reward includes the I’m Back Roll APS-C, remote control, USB-C cable, and a 2-year warranty. The $499 Discovery Kit saves 29% off the MSRP of $699 (with 64GB storage). Concretely, that puts the the Creator Kit with 128GB between $499 and $549 (for the Leica M edition), and the Master Kit with 256GB at $599. All backers also receive a 3-year warranty, with global shipping starting August 2027.
Like Jaeger-LeCoultre doesn’t need an introduction, neither does the Australian design icon, Marc Newson. If you want to know what the two in collaboration can create, look no further than the Atmos Hybris Artistica Tellurium. Powered by the in-house caliber 590, it is one of the most enticing horological marvels I have seen. Trust me when I say this, because I have actually seen some fascinating timepieces in the last decade, and I have spent time writing about watches and clocks.
The new Atmos Hybris Artistica Tellurium is ‘inspired by the beauty and the mystery of the cosmos.’ Not the solar system we are a part of, but the ‘cosmos beyond the Earth’s solar system,’ the company notes. It is the result of over 18-years of partnership between Jaeger-LeCoultre and the design genius, which has been designed to run on the most advanced and complex Atmos movements from the watchmaker that is respected for its expertise in mechanical movements.
The clock has been through a great deal of iterations to arrive at the current version, which features a new cabinet for the Atmos Tellurium designed by Newson. The glass features 64 constellations that are visible in the Northern Hemisphere, engraved on it, while 539 cabochon-cut sapphires here represent the principal stars.
A pinnacle of haute horlogerie, the Jaeger-LeCoultre Atmos Tellurium is a limited-edition piece (strictly limited to three units) featuring a meteorite dial with hand-painted, 3-dimensional earth inside the glass globe. The clock is created to precisely track Earth’s rotation alongside the lunar phases as the moon rotates around the Earth. The clock recreates the cycles of the sun, earth, and moon with great precision in 3D.
Measuring 188mm thick, the clock’s miniature earth rotates on its axis (like the real thing) in 24 hours, providing the day and night indication. While the Earth rotates, the Moon is seen orbiting it in a complete moon phase (averaging 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes and 2 seconds). This allows the moon, revolving on its own axis, to display its phases accurately. According to the watchmaker, the moon phase has complete accuracy with a discrepancy of only one day every 5,770 years.
The sun resides in the center of the Atmos Tellurium and the earth, and the moon is designed to orbit around it in one complete year, indicating the seasons (listed on the parameter of the clock) as it turns. In addition to displaying corresponding months and seasons, the clock also displays the zodiacal calendar. The Atmos Tellurium clock is powered by an in-house caliber 590 perpetual movement that operates without human intervention. Yes, as with all Atmos clocks, the Atmos Hybris Artistica Tellurium also winds itself by the expansion and contraction of a gas mixture within an airtight capsule.
Most chopsticks are never designed. They’re just made. Wide enough to produce cheaply. Consistent enough to ship by the millions. Familiar enough that nobody questions them.
Until someone finally did.
The FineLine Aluminum Chopsticks are the result of more than 40 rounds of refinements in Tsubame-Sanjo, Japan—adjusting the tip diameter, taper angle, grip texture, and balance in increments as small as 0.1mm.
Not to reinvent chopsticks. Just to remove the small frustrations people stopped noticing years ago. And surprisingly, most of those frustrations start with rotation.
The Chopsticks That Changed How Dinner Felt
At first, the difference felt almost too small to explain. Then I noticed I wasn’t squeezing sashimi as hard. I wasn’t correcting the tips halfway through a bite. I wasn’t adjusting my grip every few minutes without realizing it.
The chopsticks stayed aligned. The tips held cleanly. Long meals felt calmer somehow. And once I noticed that, ordinary chopsticks started feeling strangely unfinished.
Designed for the Details
1.5mm precision tip: Roughly half the diameter of most standard chopsticks, creating cleaner contact and more precise control.
Faceted anti-rotation body: Prevents the constant drifting and micro-corrections caused by round chopsticks.
Machined anti-slip texture: Built directly into the tip instead of added as a coating that eventually wears away.
40 rounds of refinements: Tip diameter, taper angle, grip texture, and balance were adjusted repeatedly in increments as small as 0.1mm.
14.5g balanced weight: Controlled enough for precision without becoming tiring across a full meal.
Anodized aluminum construction: Resists moisture, warping, stains, and dimensional drift over time.
Available in ten satin anodized tones, the finish adds grip without roughness while maintaining the same feel years later as it did on day one.
The Friction You Stop Noticing
Standard chopsticks taper to around 3–4mm at the tip. That’s not really a design decision—it’s a manufacturing default. It works, but it quietly asks something of you every time you eat. A little extra pressure to hold slippery food. A slight grip adjustment. A constant realignment of the tips.
Round profiles make it worse. They rotate in your fingers constantly. Subtly, continuously—your hand is always correcting them, always bringing the tips back into alignment. It’s the kind of friction that never rises to the level of complaint but accumulates quietly across every meal.
Most people never notice it because they’ve adapted to it for years.
The FineLine was designed to remove that friction entirely. Not through dramatic reinvention, but through refinement precise enough that the tool eventually disappears from your awareness altogether.
Design That Disappears
The workshop behind the FineLine was founded in Tsubame-Sanjo in 1907, a region known for precision metalworking where tolerances measured in fractions of a millimeter completely change how a tool feels in use.
That same philosophy shaped these chopsticks.
Metal chopsticks done poorly feel clinical and slippery because aluminum hides nothing. Wood and bamboo naturally absorb small inconsistencies in manufacturing. Aluminum doesn’t. Every imbalance in taper, texture, and weight becomes immediately obvious in the hand.
That’s precisely why this level of precision mattered here. The same discipline required to hold 0.1mm tolerances across professional tools is what allows a 1.5mm aluminum tip to feel stable instead of precarious.
The matching FineLine Chopstick Rest completes the system, carrying the same anodized finish, color language, and quiet restraint. Together they create a table setting that feels considered without asking for attention.
Who It’s For
Daily Chopstick Users
Once you’ve used a 1.5mm tip on a properly balanced stick, ordinary chopsticks start feeling strangely unfinished.
Japanese Craft Enthusiasts
This isn’t craft as decoration. It’s a century of metalworking precision applied to one of the most ordinary tools on a Japanese table.
Gift Givers with Taste
Not displayed. Not saved for guests. Just quietly reached for without thinking—which is exactly the point.
Where The Meal Takes Over
You don’t think about chopsticks when they work. You think about the food, the conversation, the rhythm of the meal. That’s the quiet achievement of the FineLine Aluminum Chopsticks. The grip stays aligned. The tip holds cleanly. The weight never asks for attention.
Not just chopsticks. A better way to feel every meal. The FineLine Chopsticks are available now for $30.
Google just announced Googlebook. Not to be confused with Google Books, which is a separate Google service (even though if you search for Googlebook in Google, it autocorrects you to Google Books instead). This might just be the most frustratingly flawed naming strategy Google’s ever employed, especially after the company’s already had Chromebooks and Pixelbooks under their portfolio. It’s like Google launching a smart photo frame and calling it Googlephotos. Not the wisest idea, but once you look past the name, the laptop itself starts shaping up to raise even more questions.
Think of a laptop, but it’s just entirely AI. You know how most lower-end phones are filled with bloatware? Imagine if that bloatware was just AI everything. The OS has Gemini baked in, heck, even the cursor has AI injected into it like botox. It just feels puzzling considering not one single person I know has ever looked at a Windows laptop and gone – I need more of that CoPilot. Google somehow decided to double down on the AI aspect of the laptop experience, and I’m about to coin a word that I’d like the world to acknowledge henceforth. Google’s Googlebook might just be the world’s first ‘Sloptop’.
Designer: Google
A Sloptop (combining the words Slop and Laptop) is a laptop where the selling point has nothing to do with the laptop. The hardware becomes secondary to whatever AI layer has been plastered over it, and the entire pitch is essentially “trust us, the AI makes it better.” Google describes Googlebook as laptops built with Gemini’s helpfulness at their core, designed to work seamlessly with your devices and powered by premium hardware. Premium hardware listed last, by the way. The star of the show is the Magic Pointer, a feature built with the Google DeepMind team that brings Gemini right to your cursor, offering contextual suggestions every time you point at something on your screen. You wiggle your mouse and Gemini wakes up. Which sounds exciting until you realize your Android phone has been doing exactly this for years. Google Lens already analyzes whatever is on your screen. Gemini is already in your notification bar. The Magic Pointer is functionally Google Lens wearing a blazer and billing itself as revolutionary. The jump from your phone to your laptop desktop does not constitute a new feature, it constitutes a port. Not to mention how annoyed most people will probably be while gaming or generally browsing the internet when they accidentally wiggle their cursors to only be interrupted by Gemini. If you own a mouse-jiggler for dodging workplace productivity rules, the Googlebook might just end up being your worst enemy.
The redundancy runs deeper than just the cursor. Googlebook’s Quick Access lets you view, search, or insert your phone’s files on your laptop with no transfers needed, and you can tap a phone app directly on your laptop screen without ever leaving your workflow. Android mirroring is genuinely useful, and that part of the pitch makes sense. But Google is leading with Gemini widgets, AI-generated desktops, and a cursor that thinks for you, and all of that is already sitting in your pocket. The honest question is: if your phone handles all of this already, what problem is the Googlebook actually solving? A quick observation worth making here too, particularly for parents shopping back-to-school hardware: Google is essentially marketing a laptop that will summarize, suggest, write, and generate on demand. That’s a complicated value proposition when your kid has a history essay due Monday.
Meanwhile, the $599 MacBook Neo continues to have Windows laptop makers falling over themselves trying to build a competitor that matches its price and build quality. People are not lining up for the Neo because Apple Intelligence rewrites their emails. They’re buying it because it is a beautiful, fast, well-built machine at a price point that feels almost unfair. The lesson sitting right there on the table, waiting to be learned, is that consumers want great hardware first. The AI can come along for the ride, but it cannot be the destination.
Google seems to have missed that memo entirely, which brings up the uncomfortable question of whether Googlebook is a laptop at all, or a Gemini distribution strategy with a keyboard attached. Google hasn’t even confirmed what operating system Googlebooks actually run, though the company describes it as a modern OS designed for Intelligence that combines Android and ChromeOS. That vagueness is telling. The Pixelbook was quietly killed off. Chromebooks spent years in an identity crisis, perpetually caught between being a real laptop and a browser window with hinges. Google has a well-documented pattern of entering the laptop space with genuine ambition and then quietly losing interest, and nothing about the Googlebook announcement suggests that pattern is breaking.
And then there’s the name. After everything above, the name somehow still deserves its own moment. Google is working with Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo on the first Googlebooks, which means this name is going on products from some of the most established hardware brands in the industry. Executives at those companies approved the word “Googlebook” on their machines. That’s a thing that happened. The Chromebook, for all its limitations, had a clean and descriptive name. The Pixelbook sounded premium. Googlebook sounds like what a five-year-old would name a laptop if you told them Google made it. However, I want to be proved wrong. Desperately. Google’s had such a stronghold over the Android space that it really did seem like Chromebooks would be their next magnum opus. I guess we’ll have to wait till Google I/O to get more information on this new endeavor – and hope it doesn’t hit the graveyard too soon like its predecessors.
