Google doodles with a ballpoint pen

Before the ball-point pen, writing in ink was a much messier affair. The fountain pen, which had a reservoir filled with ink, was much easier to write with than a dip pen, but still prone to smudging and taking valuable time to refill. This is where László Bíró, born 117 years ago today on 29 September 1893, came in. A Google Doodle commemorates the occasion.

Bíró was a newspaper journalist in Budapest, Hungary, who found these aspects of the fountain pen frustrating. Having noticed that the ink used to print newspapers was fast-drying, he attempted to use it in a fountain pen, only to find it was too thick to flow into the nib.

Previously, American inventor John Jacob Loud had patented a design for a ballpoint pen in America in 1888, with a ball in a socket that evenly distributed ink as it rolled. Loud had been unable to refine his invention to work on paper. Bíró, however, had a secret weapon: his brother György, a chemist. Together, the pair developed an ink that was viscous enough to work evenly with the ball-socket pen design, yet wouldn't dry out in the barrel.

The pair filed a British patent on June 15, 1938. In 1945, Marcel Bich, co-founder of Bic, bought the patent, and the ballpoint pen soon became the company's flagship product. However, in memory of its inventor, the pen is still referred to as a biro around the globe.

BeatsX earphones may be the cheaper, better AirPods alternative you want (hands-on)

The funky wireless AirPods got all the attention when Apple unveiled it alongside the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus on September 7, but it was only part of the company's new headphones lineup. It also showcased three new wireless headphones from its Beats brand: the PowerBeats Wireless 3, the Solo3 Wireless and the BeatsX.

But only the BeatsX ($150, £130, AU$200) is a truly new headphone and the first one designed with the help of Apple's design and engineering teams. (The PowerBeats Wireless 3 and Solo3 Wireless just updated the previous models in their respective lines with a new wireless chip.) You probably won't see it in stores until November, but I got an early listen, and was impressed with both the fit and sound of Beats' first neckband-style headphone.

The band itself, which Beats calls a Flex-Form cable, has two wires running through it that are made ofnickel titanium alloy or nitinol, which was developed by the US Navy in the late 1950s and is very malleable, durable and lightweight. The key to it here is that it gives the band just enough rigidity and allows you to roll up the headphone so it fits it in an included compact carrying case. You can't do that with an LG Tone headset.