Brother announces in Japan a new line of sewing machines that can automatically create comic embroidery featuring characters from the Peanuts, Disney or Hello Kitty.

The Brother Innovis comes preloaded with a comic character set and hiragana katakana symbols. New motives can be downloaded via the internet and loaded onto a data card that plugs in the Brother sewing machine.
Brother also will sell software to convert digital photos into embroidery. Great, now you can stitch your mug shot on all your black t-shirts. Such a digital sewing machine does not come cheap. Brother starts to sell the Innovis P100, K100 and SN100 sewing machine in February for 126,000 yen ($1,070).
More details in this press-release (Japanese) and on NikkeiBP (Japanese).