Technology That I Want Doesn't Exist

[thrasymachos]

One of my favorite tools in Adobe Photoshop is the eye-dropper. It's a neat little gizmo that allows you to sample a color from anywhere on an image, and then use that color in your palette. I would like a PDA-style, real world color sampler. It would have some sort of spectragraphic stylus that you could touch to a surface and sample it's color.

Comments

[cosyne]

ooh. neato. i've wanted a little headmounted camera and eyepiece display, and there'd be crosshairs, and a little readout telling me the color of the targeted object. But that would be a pain to build.
The stylus you actually touch to things shouldn't be to hard, though. You could have one high quality intensity sensor, and a bunch of different colored LEDs that flash in sequence, and you get a reading of each of those colors. Because to really get a good color reading, you're going to want much more than 24bit RGB color.

im too lazy to find the rest

[hensatc]

so here is one, i know there are more but i didnt go digging, not EXACTLY what you want and a little limited but ... still

as for your second wish...

[djsendai]

i think these folks can hook you up:

http://www.moller.com/skycar/

Just be prepared to drop a few hundred thou for your spot in line ;)