I remember as a kid always having a pencil box full of different wooden writing devices of all shapes, colors and lead types. The colors, the shapes, the smell of hacking away pieces of my pencils in an electric sharpening device (also known as a pencil sharpener), collecting pencils was always a great memory for me. Then those fancy-schmancy mechanical pencils came onto the scene, with their thin lead, fancy plastic cases, clicky buttons, it was a travesty. Now, thanks to a dedicated artist and collector, I can relive the pencils of my school years, with the Brand Name Pencil collection. Featuring photos documenting over 130 different models of pencils from years ago, the archive documents the massive range of pencil brands once produced around the world, showing the good old days of skill and craftsmanship you just can’t get at Wal-Mart.

See more: Brand Name Pencils

The future of office interaction is coming my friends and I for one am welcoming my whiteboard masters with open arms. The brainy folks at MIT have developed an amazing system (Assist Sketch Understanding System) which recognizes drawings on a smart board allowing users to create dynamic sketches with varying degrees of interactivity and intelligence. One of the examples shown involves the presenter sketching a small car on an inclined plane. After sketching this on the whiteboard, he presses the run button and the drawing is instantly animated and even reacts accordingly to the presenter NOT having drawn axles for the wheels! I can see this being used in many industries, especially by game designers and animators in order to mock up level design or character prototypes! I have no information on whether this technology will be available anytime soon or ever at all, but we can all hope to have one day have one of these boards in our meeting rooms.

Watch the MIT presentation after the jump..

Read more of ”Video of the MIT Assist Sketch Understanding System“

Perfect for offices that have a problems with wallspace, these giant monster sticky notes are almost as large as one’s head, meaning, you’ll always be able to cover up your coworkers notes, getting you one-step closer to that promotion you’ve been dreaming of. Called the Genius Pad, these giant sticky note pads measure 30cm x 30cm and come in Classic Yellow (just like the ‘real’ sticky notes). Unfortunately the 100 and 150 sheets package are sold out, but, there are plenty of 300 sheet packs left!

Read more: Arash and Kelly’s Giant Sticky Notes

Microsoft is allowing users to test-drive a beta version of Office 2007, currently in production and nearing release (someday). Users are able to take an interactive look into the newest version of Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and all of the other old favorites included in the Office suite. If you don’t feel like opening IE 6+ in order to take the interactive test drive, Microsoft also enables users to download the latest crippled beta release of Office 2007, with saving and printing functions disabled.

[Test-drive Office 2007 Beta]