You can also use R inside 'normal' Python notebooks via rpy2:
from rpy2 import robjects
my_dictionary_results = some_method()
names_dict = robjects.ListVector(my_dictionary_results)
%load_ext rpy2.ipython
%R library(some_lib)
%R -i my_dictionary_results doStuff(my_dictionary_results)
Image display etc. works fine
In a similar vein: Beaker notebooks (http://beakernotebook.com/)
I'm definitely using this for my next project.