You can turn your PC  into an eReader with a new LCD display that screws in to your existing laptop. This creates a screen that is unaffected by outside light. It’s from MAKE Magazine and Pixel Qi. They’re already sold out at makershed.com.

So far the screens have only been approved to work with two brands of laptop, the Samsung N130 and the Lenovo S10-2. But that doesn’t mean it won’t work with others. We’ve read that it just takes five minutes with a screw driver to see if it will work on your laptop.

The screens have an “e-paper” mode that is supposedly three times the resolution of the e-ink you see on the Kindle and other devices. But at $275, you may want to wait for a laptop that comes with this kind of screen.

The first GPS unit that lets you send text messages is supposed to be coming out July 31. It’s the “Earthmate PN-60w” from Delorme.com. (Catchy title, eh?)

Messages are conveyed via satellite and are not dependent on cell phone coverage, so you can send them even in the deepest darkest jungle. The PN-60w is ruggedized and waterproof, in case you are in one of those movies where you fall into the river and are swept downstream over the rapids.

Users can send messages to email addresses, cell phones, buddy lists, and social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Fire Eagle, SpotAdventures.com, or Geocaching.com, complete with GPS coordinates. (Help! I’m floating downstream on the Amazon.) The map coordinates will help, even if they change as you move along.

The device comes with North America GPS, topographic maps and street coverage for the U.S. and Canada. Nautical charts, aerial images, natural resource maps, and other locations, are available by subscription. This “”save me,” or “I am here” device does not come cheap: you can pre-order it for $550 at Amazon.com.

EMILY (EMergency Integrated Lifesaving lanYard) is  a robot-raft which can travel 28 miles per hour. It uses sonar to look for underwater movements associated with swimmers in distress. The victim grabs on and EMILY brings him to shore. Speakers and a camera can be used by the lifeguard on shore to calm the swimmer. EMILY can go for 80 miles on a single battery charge.

EMILY costs $3,500 from a company called Hydronalix. More info from Popular Science.

Every year, the Wall Street Journal’s “All Things Digital” sponsors a conference where CEOs from tech companies speak. They’ve just posted videos from the conference at video.allthingsd.com/

Movie director James Cameron spoke with Journal reporters about the making of the Titanic in 3D. So did the heads of Microsoft, AOL, eBay, HTC, Dreamworks, and  several other companies.

Videos of product demos at D8,  such as Dell’s new tablet, the Streak and Microsoft’s “Project Natal” can be seen at d8.allthingsd.com. Full coverage from past conferences is found at allthingsd.com/d.

The idea sounded promising. You start with a form in Microsoft Word, say an expense form or medical record. Load the program and choose “Anoto” in your print menu. Your printer prints the form on a light gray background. Then take your special Anoto pen and fill in the fields. When you’re through, place the pen in a special holder connected to your computer.  And then, says the manual, the form will appear on your computer screen, all filled out and ready to save as a PDF or email.  Oh, yeah?

That’s what the instructions said. In the real world the pen didn’t recognize one word in ten. Our support contact at the company said it was because we had an incompatible printer. We have an Okidata laser printer and a Canon inkjet, but the results were the same with both. These are name brands, so if they’re not good enough, we figured, this thing is brain dead.  It turns out that your printer has to be a “postscript” or “GDI” printer. The company website lists 11 models that they say work best, all of them Okidata. The Anoto lists for $500 and you can find more info at anoto.com.

Athletes may find the new “Body Temperature Alert Patch,” handy. It’s a single-use patch that changes from black to yellow if the person is in danger of over-heating.

You’ll see the Alert Patch, from ionX, in 550 retail outlets, such as Sports Authority, starting in mid-to-late June. More info at ionxalert.com.

After installing the software on two laptops, a desktop and a miniature computer called an “ultraportable,” we inserted the flash drive on one and immediately saw links to all the others. Now, we can be anywhere and use the programs back home. The bad news is we can no longer pretend we’re on a vacation trip and are out of touch with our equipment; the good news is we don’t have to travel with a laptop (they’re heavy).

There’s a free version of LogMeIn at logmein.com. LogMeIn Ignition costs $40, and it’s a bit handier, because you don’t have to type in a user name and password for each computer, tablet or phone you want to control. Your passwords are encrypted and you just click.

By the way, we can’t recommend the tiny Windows XP computer we used to test LogMeIn. It’s called the Umid “Mbook BZ,” and it’s just a little bigger than a wallet. It looks great and worked fine with LogMeIn but the screen is so tiny we could barely read it. The keyboard matched that. Joy’s typing slowed from about 100 words per minute to ten. She had to enlarge the font in Word documents just to be able to see the words. Of course that meant there were fewer words to each displayed page. Bob’s son, however, loves the Mbook. He says it’s just right when you need to work standing up in a crowded room, and it fits in his pocket. It has a built-in webcam, so with Skype or some similar Internet phone service, you can use it as a video phone. It also connects to a projector. You can get a Umid Mbook BZ at dynamism.com for $549. Not cheap.

The device is $18 and comes as a necklace, or a clip-on for backpacks, lunchboxes, purses or belt loops. They were recently showcased at the big Toy Fair in New York and will be available in May from talkatoo.com.

Using the new Xerox ink, you could have a circuit board in your clothes, turning them into a giant battery. You could literally recharge your iPod on the cuff. The new ink could also be used for “smart” pill boxes that track how much medication a patient has taken, or flexible displays that roll up.

The technology does not require the expensive clean-rooms used for silicon chip manufacturing. Furthermore, the ink is formulated so that the molecules precisely align themselves in the best configuration to conduct electricity, the company says. The ink is already available for testing by outside parties, so if you know anyone at Xerox, try getting on the sample list. We want some too. The lab that developed the ink is at Xerox, Canada.

This kind of thing sounds like science fiction but in fact is getting much closer to reality than we think.  Just this past January, a Rice University graduate student developed a method of transferring circuits to any material using carbon nanotubes. Once the first circuit is laid out, it can be transferred much like using a rubber stamp.

As far back as 2006, scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, along with colleagues at the University of Oulu in Finland, developed a method of printing circuits on clear plastic sheets, using an ordinary desktop printer. The process also works with paper or cloth.

The technique could be used to print optical tags on money and other paper items that need to be tracked, and it could even lead to an electronic newspaper where the text can be updated without changing the paper. The researchers printed different samples, some of which show sensitivity to the vapors of several chemicals, which also could make them useful as gas sensors.

In general if you look at new developments in science and technology that change manufacturing in a fundamental way, there is a lag of anywhere from 10 to 30 years before the change enters common usage. Carbon nanotube production, for example, is expensive and requires careful control. The Xerox silver ink method would be much cheaper and should lead to faster product development.

With a holographic projection, the 3D image is right there in the room with you. No glasses required. This is now being demonstrated on TVs. The downside is that you can’t look at the TV from the side, but the images do appear to jump out at you when you’re in front of them.

The technology is called “holovision” and it’s coming from companies such as Provision Holding and Innovision. Provision has already used holographic kiosks in grocery stores, mainly in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. They cost around $8,000 but the company is hoping to bring $2500 versions to consumers.  Intel also showed off a glasses-free 3-D experience at this year’s Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas.