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Google and 3M are helping to produce an open specification for styluses that can be used across different touchscreen devices:
The humble pen isn't dead — or at least the stylus isn't. Because styluses remain a big piece of the mobile accessories market, Google and 3M have joined the Universal Stylus Initiative (USI), a collective that aims to create an open, non-proprietary active stylus specification. The standard will be designed for manufacturers to create and promote styluses that are compatible with various touchscreen devices, including phones and tablets.
To accomplish this, the standard uses two-way communication instead of just one. Ink color and stroke preferences are stored in the stylus, which can be taken across different devices, while up to six styluses can operate simultaneously on a single device. The USI standard supports 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity (the same pressure level as Samsung's S Pen and Microsoft's Surface Pen) and 9-axis inertial measurement to follow and track complex movements precisely.
Also at Ars Technica.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday February 02 2018, @07:50PM
You could... but the easiest way to use a chromebook's LCD and keyboard to access a linux box remains duct taping a ras-pi to the back of the chromebook and using SSH/VNC.
I did the "crouton" thing for awhile on the chromebook to prove I could do it, but its a huge slow PITA and all I ever did was run SSH and a web browser anyway, so I converted back to being a chromebook.
In 2018 its very easy to get a local personally owned headless battery powered portable linux box for $50 or rent a powerful network accessible virtual server for $20 from linode or whatever, and its very easy to get a non-linux laptop for $200. But getting a linux laptop can still be difficult and expensive.
The biggest chromebook problem I had was for reasons unknown the keyboard layout is NOT IBM PC style and theres just enough missing keys to make using it somewhat challenging although you eventually get used to it. In that way, people who connect a IBM-layout bluetooth keyboard to their SSH/VNC running tablets have a slightly easier time than chromebook users.
In the long run I'm going to make my own laptop out of a Rasp-pi and a USB to PS/2 converter (not adapter) and an IBM model M keyboard like I'm typing on right now and a high res monitor. Eventually. In my infinite spare time. It helps that I don't have apple-itis so I don't care about thickness as my sole metric of success, and I don't use laptops without plugging them in so I don't care about batteries either. My case will be a probably rather ugly woodworking project. Ugly because I'm not sure from a woodworking perspective how to make something that'll hold those parts in the correct positions, strongly and durably, without being hideously ugly. I might compromise and make something like an Osbourne or TRS-80 4P style transportable in the style of campaign furniture. Is that a campaign furniture lapdesk from 1890s? Naw thats my fire breathing laptop-like PC that happens to be in a campaign furniture style case.