Li ne-us

Anoth er robot, Guru? Aren’t th ey a bit last week?

Yes, yes, but this one is amazing because it draws things. With an actual pen. So there.

Sigh . You’re boring me now.

Have we really reached the point where you are more cynical than this grizzled old gadget hack? Look, this robot is cool so stop complaining. Ok so it’s not going to set the world on fire, and it’s not going to radically change medical science, but it’s a pleasing toy so shut up.

i’m Sorry, gagu...

Yeah, that’s what Guru thought. Now listen up. Line-us is a robot arm, connected to an app. Your doodles in the app are translated to shaky pen-on-paper real world versions. Since you use your own pen you could replace it with whatever you like – a paint brush, for example, or, if you’re mental, a high-power blue laser for burning your creations into wood. That’s if you actually have a high-power blue laser, of course.

Sounds clever, but Wh at can you act ually do with it ?

Well, um, that’s about it. You can, naturally, use the ubiquitous connected features to share, download and no doubt add some inane social rating to sketches. You can trace stuff, draw live or hold off until your sketch is complete, and even build it from a kit (£49) if you don’t fancy paying for the pre-made version (£69).

Hey, That’s ch eap!

It is, right? There’s just one problem: at the time of writing you can’t actually buy one. Yeah, sorry about that. The makers have been slightly more successful than they’d expected and (sensibly) cut off Kickstarter supply after the first batch of 1,000 units, so as to keep themselves from becoming completely overwhelmed. If you’re interested in getting one of these (eventually), you can sign up at www.line-us.com to find out when the new units will be released.