Slashdot Mirror
Anoto-based Pens From Logitech
flanksteak writes "Logitech has announced the IO Pen, a ball-point pen with a memory. You write stuff with the pen, then drop it in its USB cradle and your bad handwriting appears on your PC. The pen is to be released in November. How cool would this be with support for a wireless protocol?" We've run some previous stories about this - no telling how well it actually works until it's tested, though. And at $9.99/notebook, the paper is about three times as expensive as regular paper.
Will it work with Sharp's Glass Computer?
It's not really a pen, per se, since you cannot use it with regular paper. What good is the pen, since it can only be used with the special digital paper?
Just lend this pen to people anytime they need to sign something.
Viola, you've captured their signature and can forge it whenever needed...
1. Lend pen to important people
2. Blackmail and defraud
3. Profit!
In the Portland, Ore area and like card games? Check out: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/portlandgames/
"The IO pen only works when used on location at one of Jupiter's moons"
What about the amount of power this would require? If my guess is correct, it would seem that they are using a USB connection to avoid excessive power consumption during download transmission of data.
come on fhqwhgads
Is 3 times as expensive as something as cheap as paper really that much of a problem for a new technology like this? Compared to most, this isn't so bad.
What's amazing about this device is not the ingenuity of the actual idea, but rather the minaturization required to fit a GPS receiver inside so small a vessel. A novel application for GPS, to be sure, and a victory for granularity in consumer GPS receivers. My personal Garmin, for instance, is only accurate to 30 feet or more, whereas this pen can apparently receive within inches.
Absolutely remarkable.
Dr. Joseph Hairston
Superintendent, CCBC
track7.org has all kinds of interesting stuff!
"How cool would this be with support for a wireless protocol?"
A TPEN), pretty darn cool.
Well, seeing as how Sony Ericsson have already announced a pen using this technology that supports Bluetooth (http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=ERIC_CH
What's the point of the special paper anyway? What makes it special and how does it relate to the storing digitally of what you wrote? I dont' see why regular notebook paper wouldn't suffice for writing stuff down the old school way while the pen digitally stored that information.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
Thats stupid. They should've added a GPS device so it could work on any kind of paper.
Give me a break...
Ok, so I first read the article and do the "Oooo cool". Then I think about it. We have had the pen and paper thing for the Palm, way overpriced. Then things like a Wacom tablet, very cool for drawing but don't try using it to write with. So now we get this. I personally don't see the full use of it. Yeah, I can take written notes in class and get them on my computer but why not just type them in in the first place. I can barly read my handwriting anyway and normally lose my pens. Bought a pack of 7 UniBall pens a month ago, down to about 2.
Why not remove the ink from the pen and write directly onto some surface (table, wall etc) and spare the paper?
Yes, you wouldn't be able to see what you've written so far, but for small, quick notes this would be a lot quicker than f.i. Palm - and quieter than dictafones.
I would buy one, as the tech is a dream come ture, (text input anywhare, full speed) but who wants to be a crash tester for all the "dotNET" crap. And what about all the big brother backdoors that come with all new MS software?
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?
I could buy two Trapper Keepers for $9.99!
Ha! I kill me!
Logitech has made some really cool stuff lately -- their speakers are an absolute steal and are better at half the price than anything put out by Creative or Klipsch.
.PEN format, however -- and even exported to JPGs, the files are probably too big to be used on PDAs, in emails, and other things.
.NET framework to run -- so much for Linux!
.NET upon you!
Too bad this pen reports in a proprietary
But worst of all, the software that decodes it REQUIRES the
We should write Logitech and request free file formats (like an export to PNG) and free software with open drivers, not some program that forces
Sounds great, but can I get one that hooks up via bluetooth to my palm? Here's another thought... make it smaller and more like a real pen. It would be better than a keycatcher for spying on some people.
OMG!!! This is the answer to online digital signatures! The person can sign on the digital paper, and the signature goes onto the screen and is converted to a graphics file which can be embedded on an online document!
However, you can also just scan your signature (with a scanner) and save the signature as a gif and achieve the same goal. But the pen is cooler.
You know, I can't even read my own handwriting on regular paper, what good is it going to do if i can download my my own chickenscratch?
Thats why I went to typeing in the first place.
(/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
I could really use this for math class. The pen's is a bit on the big side though.
I believe Wired ran an article on a company that was working on this. I don't believe it was logitech however. Several thousand invisible dots were crammed onto special sheets of paper that the tip of the pen could discern. Each dot was uniquely spaced allowing for the pen to recognize its location on the paper.
Applications including automatic faxing, emailing or saving of documents simply by checking off a box in the corner of the paper. I would like to think it was wireless as well.
I only wish I could remember which issue it was in
-dave
http://millionnumbers.com/ - own the number of your dreams
I can't keep track of $.10 BICs I wouldn't want to think about losing a $200 pen.
It would be sweet for taking notes though as long as there was good handwriting recognition software to use with it.
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
- Digital paper with Anoto functionality is created by printing a proprietary pattern of very small dots on ordinary paper that is perceived by the eye as a slightly off-white color. The dots have a nominal spacing of 0.3 mm (0.01 inch).
So my first question is: how much writing can it store if it's constantly taking pictures?As you write, the built-in digital camera in the pen continuously takes pictures of the patterned paper. Then, when you place the pen in its cradle, all of your writing is transferred automatically to your PC.
she only uses it when I'm away on business trips though.
--------------------------------------
in a world without bounderies or fences, who needs Gates anyway?
What makes you think the pen has anything to do with GPS? It uses an optical sensor and special dotted paper to record your writings, and stores them on the pen. Uploads via USB. Where does GPS fit into the picture?
At the risk of sounding unsupportive of new technology, the description of this thing makes it sound a bit kludgy. It appears to basically be an optical-mouse element tracking a regular ballpoint pen.
Of course the ability to digitally record your penstrokes is super cool (and I wonder how much memory is in there? How long could I write before I had to dump it?), but requiring the digital paper to go along with it... well, that smacks of Gillette's approach to razorblades.
Initially, I thought it was going to be some kind of system for actually tracking the literal ball that does the writing. THAT would be neat; normal paper, normal ballpoint pen, and recorded to boot. Then again, I know some optical mice work even without the special patterned mousepad, so I wonder if there's a chance this would work on regular paper...
I was surprised to see the complicated use of cameras and special paper to get the pent to work.
Wouldn't it be simpler to track the spinning of the ball in the tip like a mouse does and use a force sensor or gyroscope to detect when the ball is lifted off the paper or the pen is moved to a new position?
How does it handle erasing? Can you digitally white-out your mistakes before it is uploaded? It's a neat idea, but I don't see many people using it. The only thing worse than a paper trail is a digital trail.
Oh dear...
First, a poster of someone else's face (facial recognition evasion).
Second, the goey fingerprint duplicator,
now this walk-by signature hacker on a PDA?
What would be next?
Hijacking IRIS pattern (simply stareing at the bathroom mirror)?
Stolen DNA pattern?
There is no solid defense against unrevokable but stolen biometric parameters.
At first glance, this appears to be a pretty useless thing; more of a play toy than anything else.
However, I imagine there are quite a few applications for which this would be a godsend. One application might be the ability to make scale drawings out in the field.
It seems to be a sibling to those digital whiteboards. THOSE were something very cool as well, but you don't see them used much. But again, I'm sure there are people out there who cannot live without them.
In other words, not a killer device, but it has its uses.
The .NET framework is necessary for some of the functions of the Logitech io Software.
What the?!
Ask Slashdot: Where bad ideas meet poor googling skills.
Paper 3 tiems as expensive. .PEN format? .NET required?
:)
windows only?
Save yourself the trouble and by a scanner. You get the same thing as this when it transfers it to your PC except you're not restricted to the above.
That, and you can use the scanner for other things too
The pen itself looks huge.... probably large enough to house the innards of an optical mouse... whoa! I wonder if that's how they do it?
That is according to Logitech.
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
It sucks that you need to use special paper. You already know its going to cost more than normal paper and you won't be able to find it locally.
:-)
I think that point alone will probably make it non-viable as a mass-market product.
The idea of using a camera sounds a bit of a clunky approach too, as the camera needs to see what you're writing all the time, and it looks like it makes the body of the pen very (too?) chunky to be comfortable for significant amounts of writing.
If they could just figure out a way of tracking the rotation of the ballpoint ball instead, it wouldn't need a camera therefore could be smaller and cheaper and have no dependencies on special paper.
Maybe the best solution would be GPS
Niz.
how much does it cost? Is it cheap? Does it have an ink cartridge? Cross had something like this with the cross pad. It was a pen that actually wrote on a pad of paper. But the pad under the paper could transfer the pieces of paper to a computer as if it had scanned what you wrote. If this is cheap and ink comes out of it, I'm there.
Thats right I saw this three weeks ago when my story submission got rejected.
2002-10-02 22:56:52 Pen with a Memory (articles,hardware) (rejected)
But I'm not bitter.
...seems like some cold-car soviet idea of miniaturization in electronics
Appears to the feature all the precision and hand feel of drawing with a ballpark hotdog.
Heat Up Martia?
Am I the only one who heard Roxette to sing "I'm gonna get blitzed for some sex"?
Hey guys I just read that the software for this pen requieres .NET! Isn't that cool? Now MS can compile a database of every living person's handwriting and hopefully when you sign you name someone won't exploit .NET to get a copy of your signature. I wonder how many forged checks could come out of this technology?
... nevermind I need an Ice Pack, it's been a long day.
Let me think.. I'll pass on this technology, smells like Teen Spir.. umm I mean
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Why not just scan your memo pads?
then I went to the website and learned that unless you use windows its a paperweight. not even a heavy paperweight.
.Net in order to use the thing my desire to have one went out the window.
I didn't even bother to find out how much it was. I really liked the idea at first but upon learning that I need MS IE and
-
I tried this thing at a conference in Miami about six weeks ago. Basically, it uses a compass to measure the tilt/direction of the pen and a capsule of fluid to tell when the pen is in motion. It stores text as bitmap, so you have to either a) write clearly and use OCS (blah), b) train the provided software in your handwriting style (a la palm), or c) deal with bitmaps (which isn't so bad if it's just for archival purposes).
Of course, it's still a regular pen so it's not like you HAVE to get the character recognition to work.
I have tested the Sony Ericsson Bluetooth Pen paired with their T68i GSM phone. I was evaluating it for a possible global industrial applicaiton.
I must say that while the concept is great, the technology isn't "there" yet. During my test, I had various tracking problems when filling out a digital paper form.
Also, if a form was successfully filled out, the handwriting resolution was very dim. The image quality was acceptable if the form was filled out in big, bold, and neat manuscript letters.
This might be acceptable for some applications, but daily, our millions of customers have millions of writing styles.
There simply wasn't a way to increase the resolution for productive use with our proprietary industrial OCR engine.
I'm going to keep up with the technology and wait for improvements in this area. The concept is fantastic and I expect the technology will be more refined within a year or so.
When I first saw the slashdot post on this story I assumed it would work that way. But now u have to buy some expensive digital paper as well!
If this takes off, then they've created the first PC-based "razor-blade" market - companies make nothing on the razors, all of the (very high) profits are from the blades - outside of printer consumables.
Assuming, of course, that they've patented & copyrighted things well enough to require you to buy Logitech (R) (TM) supplies.
I've always loved Logitech products. If this takes off, then good for them!
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
The subject says it all. Optical mice can track movement on almost ANY surface. Why should this pen be any diffrent? Needing special paper completely ruins this product.
Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?
I got one word for you bro, SARCASM! It is obvious (at least to me) that this person was being sarcastic and implying that the pen could sense small movements through GPS information and translates into text being written.
Wired Magazine article from last year regarding digital paper
Long and hard I have been looking for a pen that can write on reasonably hard feces and be noticable without deforming the shape of the feces.
If any of you out there have either pens or feces to spare, I'll gladly take it from you to run my scientifical tests. I promise to report back to you who donate these materials and tell you what conclusions I have come to. I know that feces-writable pens are a huge problem facing our society today and would love to have some help in easing the pain. Thanks!
Check here
It didn't do very well, applications never were developed for it. And the handwriting recognition wasn't very good either, but I never took the time to train it. A.T. Cross unfortuantly stopped making it.
It used any notebook, but it had a special back you had to put the notepad in that recieved a signal the pen emitted. It only used serial, but this was back when USB was just showing up on the scene
Why aren't you encrypting your e-mail?
I would much rather have the old trackpad pen recording system... I can use any paper I desire, and just use the magnetic pen over the thin backplane that my paper is on... easier, better and costs less than the overprices $200 + another $200 a month in special paper.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Well, the special paper has dots that are tracked with a camera in the pen. But the question is, why does it need the dots even? My optical mouse doesn't need dots to work.
Of course you might run into focus problems, like if you pulled the pen up it wouldn't know where on the paper it was. There are a number of ways to get around this, such as an ultrasound range finder connected to a focusing lens (pretty expensive tech to put into a pen, but if were already putting cameras in 'em), or an accelerometer or gyroscope position finder.
Lonely?
Find love on the internet
The first true breakthrough in pen technology in 200 years
Er, the ball-point pen invented in 1938 wasn't a "true" breakthrough?
Yeah, I've always thought that ball-point pens were overrated. Fountain pens forever, baby!
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I went to RIT where there is also the NTID (National Technical Institute for the Deaf) that attend the same classes as hearing people. There is usually a person in the front of the room that is doing sign language of the teachers lectures and there is a student that is paid to take notes for the deaf students. It would be great if the deaf students could get their notes sent to them via e-mail at the end of class instead of waiting till the next class when the student would have brought back xerox copies.
This pen would be perfect for that.
This is reverse specification creep. Anyway, I do all my sketching in Clairefontaine exercise books with 240 sheets and 5mm squares: great for SSADM diagrams etc. I'm not about to go back to using poxy little bits of expensive paper, paying through the nose because it's called "digital", especially knowing how cheap it is to print that stuff. This concept needs more work before lots of suckers will allow their credit cards to be vacuumed.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
"How cool would this be with support for a wireless protocol"
Would it be called the BlueInk protocol.
WEll - if they did have one with Wireless capability I am sure the CIA would love a few thousand to give to visiting diplomats and anyone else in general.
Dude. You're supposed to write *with* the feces, not *on* the feces.
Super ninja monkeys will one day rule the world!
Apparently the pen recognizes absolute position on the paper by recognizing x-y coordinate information encoded in the dot pattern.
Well, is every page in the special notebook unique? And is each NOTEBOOK unique?
Suppose you are keeping lists on pages 10, 18, and 26 of a notebook. You add an entry on page 10, flip to page 18, add an entry, flip to page 26, add an entry and download. Now what? Do you see the complete list on page 10 as it appears on the paper? Or do you see a series of separate one-line images?
Suppose you write a note on page 3 of notebook A and then write another note on page 3 of notebook B, when you download them do you see both notes superimposed on page 3 of "the" notebook?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
We had a somewhat similar piece of hardware for whiteboards, though it didn't require special boards. A suction-cup-equipped sensor stuck on the board and special sleeves fit around the pens. Because we had several sleeves (for several colors) we could get pretty accurate results saved to a nearby, wired desktop. I liked the idea that all the new equipment was non-consumable and we could use our original boards and markers.
If Logitech really wanted to impress me, the paper could be any paper, placed in a small portfolio sleeve with sensors in the corner. If they're using a template printed on the paper, just make it bold and dark, so it's easy to see through the a sheet of notebook paper. I could teach myself to write on the last piece of paper in a notebook and pull the sheet out when done. It would be much more useful to me than trying to justify a $10 notebook every couple of weeks.
I saw the original demoed at CTIA in Orlando earlier this year. Was very impressive when coupled with a bluetooth phone.
.Net ? Yech!
One example used email forms on a pad. You wrote in the different boxes like TO: and SUBJECT: then the message below. When you marked the box checked SEND the message was squirted to the phone via bluetooth, then over the air. You could send text or digital ink which would be included in the email as an attachment.
This looked to tbe the best way to send email if all you had was a phone. No funky predictive spelling do-dads on a standard phone keypad.
The logitech looks like they managed to both dumb-down and encumber the thing. USB cradle? IE?
If the original Anoto pen was available for $199 I'd buy it. No cradle, no 20MB software loads, just use it with your bluetooth phone.
Could someone who knows tell me if it is possible to create a version of this idea that works with regular paper by tracking the ballpoint instead of taking pictures of special digital paper? It almost seems like Logitech has purposefully tied this product to digital paper for the sole purpose of creating recurring income. This reminds me too much of the printer and ink model. There is no way on earth I'm buying such a pen if I have to buy special paper to go with it. Give me a digital pen that works with regular paper and costs less than $70, and I'll strongly consider purchasing. Add some kind of wireless functionality (bluetooth, or even IR) so I can transmit to my PC or PDA, still for less than $70, and there is no way on earth I'm not buying the product.
Anoto. Obviously they licensed it out to different companies rather then to do everything themselves. Which is what you're supposed to do with patents :P
Lonely?
Find love on the internet
Europa, maybe?
Just think, we don't have to print out every incoming fax, we can save notes and e-mails typed into the computer... then this thing comes out, and we get to *write* everything down again.
Yeah, sure, it'd be useful for people who usually take paper notes anyway (like me), but for the whole "making communication easier" thing, it seems like a waste of perfectly good paper to scribble out a quick e-mail to someone with this pen.
Super ninja monkeys will one day rule the world!
From the FAQ:
...all out in the cold because Microsoft created their own necessity.
I use Netscape exclusively as my web browser; do I still need to install Internet Explorer?
Yes, but only if your system has an older version of Internet Explorer installed. Since Internet Explorer is a core component of Windows, many features of the Logitech io Software are dependent on the program. However, installing Internet Explorer does not mean you must use it as your browser; you can still use Netscape as your default Internet browser.
Remember when Microsoft, during their DOJ trial, claimed that Explorer was intractable from Windows? That it was such a core component that could not be removed without crippling the whole OS? Not only were they wrong but they were caught fabricating evidence in the form of a VHS tape with telltale impossible graphics and they were busted, wholesale.
Well this is just an example of how that fabrication -- and by extension Microsoft's influence -- affects a fair market negatively. Netscape, Opera, Mozilla, Konqueror
"Core component" my ass.
My
Limekiller
dot NET=dot SUCKS
Can I photocopy the paper to make my own?
Not that I think this is likely... but since each piece of paper is somewhat unique (one sheet from a 60,000 km^2 area.) Couldn't this be used for some kind of tracking. Microsoft uses media player (with their new update) to grab these .pen files, looks at the dot patterns to see which piece of paper it was written on, then figures out where that paper was sold. I'm getting my tinfoil hat ready now.
Go away, or I will replace you with a very small shell script.
Really old laser mice requred special pads. They were mirrors with little grids. Pretty cool, actualy. I picked up this old Mac+ (second model after the mac classic) for free with one once. It didn't actualy work that well.
Lonely?
Find love on the internet
it was hard enough to get my rear end up on the photocopier. how many asses can fit on the tip of a pen?
From the FAQ: .NET framework? .NET framework is necessary for some of the functions of the Logitech io Software.
Why do I have to install the
The
Oh isn't that special...
My
Limekiller
All these worlds are yours, except Europa... ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE. -- 2010: Odyssey Two Arthur C. Clarke
Uses .NET, well it just went from "clever maybe i'll buy one" to "hmm, thats a shame, i won't EVER buy one of these".
I haven't owned (in the normal ownership sense) or used a windows computer at work or home for years. Someone thinks i'll do it just to use a big fat expensive pen, HA. I say HA.
Logitech claims this is the first true breakthrough in pen technology in 200 years, but I guess the invention of the ball-point pen in 1888 doesn't qualify. Sigh... gotta love marketing hype!!
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
One company has a dayminder that has a pressure sensitive pad under the paper and it transfers the data to your palm pilot that sits in a little cradle in the other side of the dayminder. This product does not require any special paper so lifetime costs would be much lower especially if you already own a Palm device.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Well, I guess we know where the rest of that government funding disappeared to while they were busy subsidizing the financial losses of the carbon paper manufacturers... "Senator blackfingers - we found a solution for your brothers lost business profits!"
Sure, I can see a few of our of really technophobic executives using this silly pen to plug their henscratchings directly into a computer, instead of having a secretary having to retype it or scan it.
Speaking of scanning, you could use it for making hand drawn maps or simple art, But then, that's what the digital pads were supposed be for...
Instead of messing are with fiddle faddles like this, when are they going to come up with a decent roll up style interactive computer display that I can use to hand draw out maps on while I'm setting up my tactical/D&D metal miniture battles in which I now use with wet erase markers?
(Personally, I think my players would love it if we were be able to digitally save these maps, and I know it would certainly be a boon to us DM's!)
- White Wolf
[Now, I'm off to lift my le... Um, visit... at another place.]
Like I said bfore, if they came out with a way to convert sloppy handwriting to text, and could program a syntax onto the pen, well, you could get a lot of work done. Gotta scrap of paper? Then code. On the bus, in the john, when you're bored at family functions, at church, etc. whatever. No fragile expensive awkward laptop........just a pen and paper.
This is a really interesting business model (and an aspect to this product that no one else in this discussion seems to be aware of).
Obviously I must have one. :^)
Your wish is my command.
Stop Continental Drift! Reunite Gondwanaland!
> Someone thinks i'll do it (use windows) just to use a big fat expensive pen, HA. I say HA
No, someone thinks you're in a very small minority, and wants to maximize their profits by targetting the largest audience they can.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Give each student a digital pen and a special notepad. Equip each pen with a wireless transmitter of some sort (already discussed in other comments) which communicates with a "base station" elsewhere in the room or lecture hall.
Set up the notepad and pens to capture user input so that each student could submit questions or comments, which would be viewable by the instructor, so they could participate in an interactive discussion. This would be especially helpful for deaf students who can't really raise their hand and ask a question during a lecture or discussion. Of course, the instructor would have to manage the incoming questions and comments.
Another use would be for lecture/instructor feedback. Remember those silly forms that each instructor had to pass around near the end of each term? This pen would make it easier for all students to submit their comments.
Any other uses?
Super ninja monkeys will one day rule the world!
How is this different than the crossPad ? I got one of these on clearence at Staples about 3-4 years ago. Its a pen that has a radio transmitter in it, you write on regular paper on a special tablet. This records everything you write in the pad, and on paper. When you get home, you sync it to your computer (rs232, no usb) and viola, your notes ready to be converted with the included IBM handwriging recognition software.
How is this thing any different, besides the usb?
I really love my crossPad, its nice to have a paper copy, and a digital copy of everything I jot down.
-Mkl
Is paper faulty somehow?
This
Another pen I will lose somewhere.
Anoto-based Pens From Logitech != Anoto-based Penis From Logitech
I guess we can't make a Beowulf cluster out of these since it uses .NET. Damn...
OMG!!! you're stupid.
Actually, the MIT Media Lab demoed a system that used receivers located throughout the building to pinpoint the location of various items, like the conference TV, digital cameras, etc. The selling point, of course, was that you would never be able to lose your pen :) IIRC, they were getting resolution in the inches, but of course so does GPS these days, so it's not inconceivable to tweak the system to make pen strokes discernable. You would probably want to encrypt the result, but otherwise it wouldn't be any more insecure than existing wireless networks.
i love how they always show pictures of technologies like this where everyone happens to have perfect handwritting, with perfect spacing and tabing so that when it is imported to a PC, it still is decently usable. If i really wrote like that, I'd never have to use a computer. What they need is some kind of active translation like the writting similar on an Newton or Palm Grafiti.
Jesus saves souls and redeems them for valuable cash prizes
A homeless person could make better speakers than Creative using some baling wire and cardboard boxes. But better than Klipsch? No way. Klipsch still 0wNz in speaker design.
Check out terminatorX
No I mean really check it out, check out the turntables section. See the one made by toqer? Yeah thats me... Well anywho, on with my comment.
I know 3 DJ's (more hobbiest) and I spent a little time watching how they scratch records, mix and all that good stuff. I noticed that when they scratched, they had a special slip pad underneath the vinyl so it would slide smoothly. This got me to thinking that it was the record that provided the most tactile feedback to the DJ, and not just the turntables.
So I did that first prototype, it works good, but black doesn't reflect well enough so I would like to do something different. Here comes my big question to the people in the know.
Since this device is more than just a mouse (it takes pictures and sends them back to the pc) could you track the position on the record with a visual cue? Like a pattern, a barcode or something? I'm thinking if it could be done, just distribute a PDF so people could print up thier own records.
"But worst of all, the software that decodes it REQUIRES the .NET framework to run -- so much for Linux!"
.NET framework?
This
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
It needs the special paper because it's tracking absolute pen location, not relative motion like a mouse.
If you pick up and move your mouse (above the work surface), then it doesn't know anything happened. The cursor on the screen doesn't move because the mouse doesn't know it moved.
If you pick up and move the pen (say to underline something you've already written), it needs to know absolutely where it is so that it underlines the correct text.
I can't read my writing on paper. Why would I want to see it on a computer?
I think I will still prefer the InkLink, especially since it clips to any pad of paper, not require special digital paper. It is also only $100 vs. $200 for the io pen (SmartPad: $100, SmartPad2: $150) and works with PC(windows they should say), Palm, and PocketPC
Second question: Is there anyone old enough to remember why typing was invented? I thought it was invented so that we don't have to read ugly handwriting.
My professor's handwriting was really bad. Once I recd a post-it from him and went to ask him what it says. He was out of the office, so I asked his secretary. Well she couldn't read it. By chance his son came over there (then a UC Berkeley student), neither could he read it. Finally one of his colleagues (they had worked 15 years together) could read it. It was all non-technical. Now imagine if he had this pen and he sent all his emails in his hand-writing.
Then again, I know some optical mice work even without the special patterned mousepad
How long has it been since you actually saw one of those in operation? Been years since I saw one (last one also has a resolution of ~0.1 inches! Ick!). From the other comments it sounds like some companies held onto them a bit longer (with the requisite improvements in technology).
THAT would be neat; normal paper, normal ballpoint pen, and recorded to boot.
Hmm... No special paper, no special pen.
You could have an attachment to the pen, which would probably have a hard time adapting to different people's writing style unless it was REALLY close to writing surface. Also, different positioning on the pen might be tricky (totally different accelerations felt at different distances from your hand).
You could have some sort of means of tracking the position of the pen in a little area, ie. between a few positioning locators, but again resolution on the handwriting scale could be hard here. Or is that how the Palm systems work already?
Alternatively, you could have some sort of visual tracking system ($$$!). The easiest way I can come up with to get that to work would be to have it optically observe the ink you left behind. This is however really, really close to just being a glorfied realtime scanner. Why not just put your regular sheet of paper into a scanner when you're done with it maybe and save it at fax resolution. This has the advantage of existing, not costing too much and being very protable (ie. standard paper is easy to carry around).
A final idea, use a tablet input device! Maybe have a tablet with a somewhat reduced sensitivity so it ignores hand pressure but easily picks up the focused pressure of a pen head. Place a sheet of regular paper on the tablet (assuming they're about the same size) and viola, handwriting recording.
As far as i can tell, this special paper requirement really only exists to force you to give more money to them every time you need more paper.
In essence, the paper creates an absolute "geographical" reference point for all your writing. This imaginary space is roughly the size of Europe and Asia. That's pretty big, but it is not limitless, so not only do you have to continue buying more "proprietary paper", you will eventually have to upgrade your whole pen system. Gee, i wonder if that upgrade will be free?
This whole concept is so surrealistically Rube Goldberg-ish i can hardly comprehend it. (BTW, "rube" is a synonym for "fool".)
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
Initially, I thought it was going to be some kind of system for actually tracking the literal ball that does the writing. THAT would be neat; normal paper, normal ballpoint pen, and recorded to boot.
That wouldn't work though, because a pen can be _lifted_ off the paper.
How cool would this be with support for a wireless protocol?"
Good luck. I seriously doubt logitech would provide information on developing such a driver for this device.
Boycott Logitech
Live web cams
here is the company info about it
I got it to take class notes and it works great. The only bad thing is having to re-position the clip after you write on each page...
Gerry -- #include "ea!.h"
This is essentially a glorified 2D barcode reader. The camera captures enough information in the little dots to know where it is with good precision in the 60 thousand killometer 2 dimensional barcode.
They couldn't use an optical mouse mechanism because it can't tell where on the page it is. They have a 60 thousand kilometer space so if you go back to the same page you wrote on a week ago and make changes then it'll show up on the correct page.
They could simplify it, though, by allowing generic pads to be made where each page in a pad is unique, but if you want to change to a different pad you have to scan the top bound ridge first so it knows you're on a different pad. The pads are currently expensive because each sheet has to be printed individually. Make it simpler with the suggestion above and you can at least make the pads duplicates of 90 different printed sheets.
I suspect it'll flop. People will only buy the special pads for the pen, but they won't always have a special pad available when they want to write something down.
I think a simpler technology could suffice here with the parts of an optical mouse. It only needs to know which words are continous, and you can reformat their actual layout later, if needed, on the computer. Add a cheap accelerometer and it'll have a good idea of where things are in relation to each other. Add some powerfull post-processing software and it'll be able to eat drawings as well, matching up areas where the camera saw previously drawn lines.
In the end, this is a hardware solution to a problem begging for a software solution.
-Adam
Think about it- all of your grad school notes (becuase undergrad courses are worthless... 'cept maybe the ones you take in your senior year, unless you take "basket weaving 101" your last semester so you can spend time getting drunk and laid...oh wait, I'm on slashdot...)
kept for posterity- better yet- all of your grad school and PhD stuff in a format you can easily save and print out later. Sounds like a note takers dream for those qualifying exams!
This should be standard issue gift for any friends/relatives going on to higher education.
-
Actually, I could justify this for work- frequently I take notebooks worth of notes, just to save 'em off for that one day where I will transcribe everything to a notes file... YEAH RIGHT.
This would take the work out of it.
I'm buying 3.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I wrote a paper that included a paragraph on this pen. It included notions about multiple inputs and personal life-servers. Check it out here
This product would be useful if it did not require special paper. The paper requirement is going to make this a niche or early adopter product at best. What I don't understand is why all these tech companies are moving to pen based products, especially the tablet pc. By the time the technology is solid, most purchasers will be comfortable with keyboard and mice interfaces, tablet and pen computing will be relegated to specialty uses. Just go to any college computer lab. Freshmen type 50 wpm with 10 IM windows open.A large amount of the people who desire pen based products will be dead in 15 years.
Why not multimode? Have modules to support a rollerball, fountain pen, or even a mechanical pencil?
I can see the digital comic strip artists drooling over this, whats the resolution like? No more having to scan in handwritten line-art, just sketch what you want and post todays strip up on the web. Almost like my old Koala Pad...
I've seen several comments asking "Why do I have to use special paper?" so I'll reply at the top level.
I think the technical reason is that the special paper gives the pen absolute positioning on the page. If I take my optical mouse, lift it up, and put it down somewhere else on the desk, the mouse doesn't know it's at a different part of the desk. The pen does know where is is on the page if you do this to it, because of the special paper.
Of course, as someone else pointed out, that's not to say that there is no business reason for this as well...
I'm surprised that nobody has done anything novel such as a small coil in the tip and a ink ball that has a partial metal structure. In such a system you should be able to sense the ball movement and direction. The ball would be super cheap and could be your renuable revenue stream by selling the replacement ink cartridges. Furthermore, such a sensor would be so small that it could easily be placed into just about any profile - not the bloated fat (and probably uncomfortable) pen they came up with.
I mean, isn't a pen nothing more than a very very very tiny mouse ball? Sensing it's rotation and position should not be hard asuming you can fiddle with the balls composition.
I don't see any novel technology here, only bad design.
Seems the next logical step to use this as an input device would be to make 2-state paper that can easily return to its first state. Basically paper than you write on with the special pen and it changes to black, but you press a button and it changes back to clear. Maybe like etch-a-sketch type but with ink and static charge or something. That way the paper would be a bit more expensive but it would be reusable.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
I don't see how this pen could be of use to anyone really. I have a favorite pen that I like to write with, and I'm sure that a good majority of you guys have similar tastes. What would peak my interest is a thin 8 1/2 x 11 "wacom-esq" pad that I could put _under_ whatever I am writing on. That way I could have a digital carbon copy of whatever I write with my favorite pen on my chosen paper type.
/. rant on....
Syncing with the comp would be great, especially if it could somehow link up with a technology like OS X's inkwell.
rant on
Pad of "analog" paper: 50 cents Bic "stic" pen: 10 for a buck Sheet-fed scanner: $150 The ability to capture your handwriting without .NET, digital paper, Windows, or selling your soul: Priceless
eraser? ... do we have to wait for another 200 years for digital eraser for a new type of special paper?
How about a room full of these for a beowulf cluster!!
If you had a beowulf cluster of these you could keep it/them in a pencil-case.
graspee
The requirement for the special "digital paper" is actual valid and has little to do with the "old selling technique."
.NET requirement.
Yes, it would be easy for an optical-mouse-like device like this to track a normal ballpoint pen without patterned paper, however what happens when you pick up and drop the pen between words and strokes?
Optical mice devices easily store relative movements, but to digitally record pen movements the device needs to obtain absolute positions (relative to the page), because separate strokes of the pen can be started anywhere on the page; as opposed to mice where the pointer always moves form where it left off. The easiest way (that i can think of) is using a pattern of dots (or any visual element) that is unique to each location on the page. That way the pen knows where it by analyzing the picture formation of the dots.
Unless the patterns are "specially encoded" for each pen, the paper should be replicable if someone had the technology to copy and print really small dots (0.3mm too small for scanners/printers?). If this is possible and Logitech knows this, I don't think that they plan on profiting long on selling paper. However, they may not even profit much on the pen if people are really turned off to the
if you lose it? I'll stick to my $1.99 for 5 bics, thank you.
Got a laugh outta thing line in their FAQ:
"I use Netscape exclusively as my web browser; do I still need to install Internet Explorer?
Yes, but only if your system has an older version of Internet Explorer installed. Since Internet Explorer is a core component of Windows, many features of the Logitech io Software are dependent on the program. However, installing Internet Explorer does not mean you must use it as your browser; you can still use Netscape as your default Internet browser."
The last thing I bought that used special paper was the Sinclair ZX-Printer.
graspee
It's a neat to, but until it's able to work on any paper or surface, it's just a toy.
For instance, it will *never* make in in an office setting, if you'd have to increase a good portion of your office supplies budget by 60% or more.
(A thought: if you could print out dotted sheets of paper in your laser printer, without being sued under the DMCA or for patent/copyright violations (don't laugh.) it *might* be a little more justifiable.)
And it's awfully expensive, and it doesn't look like the end of it will hold up to extensive chewing. I tend to chew my pens.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
Who here thinks $9.99 is 'TRIPLE' the price of a regular notebook? Where I come from a notebook costs about .19, that's more than 50x the price.
as i do not have any mod points today,
i just wanted to let you know that "Voila! Viola!" nearly made me fall out of my chair
The writing pads could be made much cheaper if each page didn't have to be unique.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Sorry, but I'm not getting this one. I'll wait for a slimmer version and then decide if it's even worth purchasing.
Why are all these e-pens ballpoints? Why not a fountain pen, or at least a roller-ball? If you're going to pay $200 for a pen, it might as well be one that is pleasant to write with. I turned down a free Cross Pad for this very reason . . . .
Wears off. Homophone.
I"m gonna put a transparent sheet on top of that special paper. After all, it uses small camera to record the locations of dots, right?
Now I can reuse that paper over and over
This is not a troll; I'm serious in doubt as to why this product is useful.
Notepads are useful largely because they're essentially disposable; you can scribble as much as you want without worrying about running out of paper or about it costing too much. $10 for a replacement notebook is a bit steep. I usually pay $1 or so for my notebooks.
So I can get an image of my notebook pages... doesn't a $50 scanner do the same thing? Ok, so a scanner takes a little while and only handles a page at a time. Is that limitation worth $150 to that many people, especially with an extra $7 per notebook?
Cool technology, but I doubt this will be a successful product.
-John
Of course you could build a pen-sized optical mouse that leaves tracks on paper.
.
But everytime you'd pick up the pen your track was lost, so the system wouldn't know where you put the pen afterwards. You couldn'T even put the dot on the letter "i"
"They" use an absolute positioning system.
The system always knows on which "i" you put your dot on.
In fact, the system doesn't only recognize the position on the sheet of paper but the position on any sheet that Anoto ever printed.
This results in something like an infinite amount of input-tablets, by this you can start writing an email today, and the computer knows to send it in a week, just after finding the paper again and checking the "send"-box - alhough you wrote 100 pages inbetween.
I like the idea.
What I don't like is to be so dependend on a single source of paper.
And - of course - it's Windoze/.NET only, although they show a TiBook in their ads.
k2r
I lost my pen. Not only did I lose my pen, I lost the information stored in it.
Imagine this being used during a test... just send the info to a buddy across the room. or to a van outside, on tech support that can get you all the answers! muah hahah the world is MINE!
--JonnyBlog
No, someone thinks you're in a very small minority, and wants to maximize their profits by targetting the largest audience they can.
.NET. There are other options, such as Java/Swing or C++/Qt, that would allow them to easily produce versions portable across UNIX, Linux, Mac OS, and Windows. Right now, the only thing .NET accomplishes is limiting their potential base of customers to those who use Windows. This alientates all the artists who prefer Mac OS and could benefit from digitized sketches. It alientates the "geeks" who would love a pen like this if only for a novelty. It alientates UNIX shops who could use this pen to document meetings and initial designs. There are many people who don't use Windows who would want a pen like this.
Again, it would not have been more work for Logitech to adopt a framework other than
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
One thing I can't help noticing is that the picture looks very similar to Digital Ink, which was developed at the Institute for Complex Engineered Systems at CMU and won the 1997 Gold Industrial Design Excellence Award. I don't know about the functionality.
The main obvious difference seems to be that the logitech one needs the special paper. Does anyone know if there's a relation?
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm?page=products/fe atures/digitalwritingtopics&CRID=1546&countryid=19 &languageid=1
.PEN format at the top, .NET at the bottom.
Read the FAQ: proprietary
Get your facts straight before you accuse someone of being a troll, you moron.
Yes, if you RTFA you'll know the dots correspond to a map larger than the US.
What _I_ want to know is: Can I scan a page at reasonable resolution and have the laser printer crank out replacements? Then the paper costs about 3 cents a sheet.
If no, how long til we have a 12k app that generates a useful sequence that can be sent to a laser printer? (BTW, the pages look like they've got a roughtly 12% greyscale screen on them...)
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
From their website:
Digital paper enabling Anoto functionality is created by printing a proprietary pattern of very small dots...A minute portion of the total patter uniquely defines its position in the full pattern, 60,000,000 square kilometers, which is equivalent to an area exceeding that of Europe and Asia combined."
Great. I bet it's copyrighted, and at 60,000,000 square kilometers, I bet pretty much every possible dot configuration is accounted for. Now what do we do when we want to doodle?
Joe
// //
Clearly it's technologically feasible...optical
mice can work on most surfaces these days. If so I can use a bluetooth enabled version for all of my device types
I don't know about you, but I lift my pen off the paper when I write. Ever try that with an optical mouse?
There's no need for gay-bashing.
Is your neighbor hoarding pencils? Since the Prevention Of Subversion Act (2009) was passed, all pens have been required to have proper government wireless logging. Owning a pencil is illegal. Report hoarders to the police! Your house may be inspected for contraband at any time - if we catch you with illegal untapped writing materials, the penalty is incarceration as an enemy combatant in Traitor City X-ray. Remember citizen, information is the poison by which treason subverts patriotism. Eternal war for eternal peace! Heil Bush!
Copy paste comments from Wired magazine out about a year ago.
This Anoto patent describes exactly the system works: WO 0126032 A1 (you can look at this document on the European Patent Office Website at http://l2.espacenet.com/espacenet/viewer?PN=WO0126 032&CY=ep&LG=en&DB=EPD
The main advantage is that it's an *absolute* position detection system as opposed to a relative system like optical mice, tablets etc.
The large paper space is a side effect of the encoding algorithm which allows an enormous logical area for paper encoding.
I've use one... very cool. No problems with handwriting capture. A nice piece of kit.
They should work out a deal with the DMV to print their forms on the special paper. When you fill out the form theres no data entry on their side and they have the original copy that you filled out. That would rock. Work in bluetooth and you don't even need to stand in line. Just fill in the form, drop it in the bin, and pick up your registration.
At least it works with any old piece of paper.
Sure, you gotta put the paper on the tablet, but that's not a big deal. The pen is also properly sized for human hands. I've always wanted to try to hack the proprietary data format and get it to sync to my palm phone. I didn't like the newer unit designed for palms (different manufacturer ?) because it was too small. The only changes the Crosspad would need to stay current is USB 2 or firewire downloads and a decent pen cap with a stylus tip.
My optical mouse doesn't need special paper, and the cursor moves where needed. I'd bet I could even write a program to replay the mouse movements without too much trouble. If the pen is using a camera (like the mouse), why can't is just record the movements (like the mouse)?
New glasses, it's time...swear I thought it read ball point penis. I've always had a ball point penis with memory.
PegQuin--I've got a sneakin' suspicion
I saw this pen at a tech expo at my University last month. The logitech rep was displaying it as their big new thing for students to take notes.
Real people were walking up to watch, using it themselves to write messages, then docking the pen to see their notes appear on the PC without any problems. The image looks like a perfect copy of the notes written by the user.
I saw the custom notebook the Logitech rep was writing on and figured it's probly going to be way too pricey, like $10 per 100 sheet notebook. The rep claims the notebooks are made by Mead and they cost about 10% more than a regular notebook. If a regular notebook is say $1.00, then the Logitech compatible one would be about $1.10.
I don't work for logitech or anything. I actually dislike most of their products since most of the better features only appear on the wireless devices. But this pen thing looks really useful. If I were still taking classes I'd think about getting one. The only problem I saw was the cost of the pen ($200 or something like that?).
"Dad, will you sign my report card. Oh, don't worry about getting a pen... use mine, hehe" And all future report cards are secured, muahaha! Wish I had this when I was in school!
A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. - Tennessee Williams
Logitech came to a tech expo we had here at UCF. They had one of these on display and let us try it. Although I couldn't think of any personal need I had for this device, I do know that it seems to work quite well. In my experience with the pen, I didn't notice any wierd glitches that are often present in new technology like this.
I don't see anything about handwriting recognition or OCR in there. Wouldn't this pen be FAR more useful if it showed up on your computer as text instead of a bad scan of your handwriting? Surely there's a modern OS with a built-in handwriting recognition service out there somewhere...
Logitech isn't Anoto's only licensee. Sounds like you're talking about Sony Ericsson's Chatpen. It's suddenly hard to find on their website, though... makes you wonder whether they're having second thoughts about shipping it.
--Larry
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence
The digital paper sounds exactly like the scenario used by the printer industry: "sell the printers cheap, make a killing on the ink." How long will it take before we see an economicaly feasible method of generating your own microdot paper (assuming there is a true demand for this product)?
Fools ignore complexity; pragmatists suffer it; experts avoid it; geniuses remove it. ~A. Perlis
I'd love to see a Linuxdriver for this thing!. I looked at some usbsniffer output and it seemed pretty clear, nothing is encoded anyway. It's basicly a matter of tickling the pen into sending it's last request through the USB-dock and rip out the data. How hard could it be? Let me know if you are willing to hack a driver and I'll send you the logs right away!
InkLink, $85 at buy.com, appears to be a pen that does this without special paper. (IBM also made a product with a tethered pen and clipboard, but I don't know if it exists anymore.)
2 &loc=101
http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=1032022
But in this image on the IOpen website, it sure looks like, well, they pasted the image on to that pretty little notebook. Hmm, windows on a TiBook . . .
\Drew National Data Director, John Edwards for President
There is already a wireless version of this pen, called the SonyEricsson Chatpen CHA-30 (lame name, yes I know), and it has been available in Sweden for six months, during which /. hasn't shown any interest in the pen. It communicates with your cellphone using bluetooth. Otherwise it works the same.
The thing about the special paper is that it is absolutely fool-proof. You can wrinkle your paper, write upside down, write a few minutes, do something completely else for an hour and continue where you were. You can even write on different pieces of paper, and the pen will keep them apart.
Also there is no limit to the number of services that can be built into actual paper, since there can be special fields which has meaning.
For example, Time Manager and Filofax will be releasing paper based Anoto calendars, where everything you write with your IO pen in the calendar automatically is synched with your computer based calendar when you dock your pen! So scribble down that meeting, and it will appear in the correct place in Outlook.
Also you could implement paper based e-commerce - you could have fields in an ordinary mail-order catalog, just check them to order the product.
Or you could have fields in commercials in the morning paper, where you can order more information etc.
There is no limit.
One of the niftiest thing with the wireless version (which is currently undergoing trials in the medical field in the US) is that I use it to take down notes at meetings, and can send these notes to my co-workers while I am in the meeting, so without my client noticing my staff can start working before the meeting is over. It is pretty cool to have a finished mock-up available right after a meeting.
nope. its not a repeating grid on the paper; that would lead to -major- aliasing problems as people move the pen at different speeds, etc. its a unique set of off kilter dots; every page has a unique pattern. there's an old wired article on the Anoto stuff from a while back (a year or two ago?). search for it.
I notice that the CrossPad is no
.png images
longer available...
What would be so difficult about doing the
following:
* a touch sensitive clipboard (basically
like a wacom tablet)
* I can put whatever "normal" writing paper
I want on it, and use any "normal" pen or pencil
* the clipboard has some memory of position/pen strokes
* if I want to erase, maybe I hold down a button
at the same time that use an eraser (rather than
having the clipboard go through all the
machinations of detecting the difference between sharp (write) and blunt (erase))
* the action of putting a new piece of paper in
the clipboard means "new page".
One or both of the following:
* dock via USB and dump the stored pages...
* use WiFi.. other devices get
of each page from the embedded web server
in the clipboard.
OCR, etc.. are the responsibility of whatever
receives the image(s). Don't need to clutter
the clipboard with that functionality.
Like I wrote, uses everyday paper & pens...
Seems straightforward to me. Target price of
under $250.
Couldn't you just write out all your notes/sketches on a piece of regular paper and scan it? I'm not sure I see the point of a device like this, so please enlighten me if there is one (or more).
Another word for this innovative 2002 technology: a scanner. You know you're in a recession when different mechanisms are being used to accomplish the same thing, each new mechanism providing less and less advantage. This is a real stretch for any practical improvement over scanners.
read this old (april 2001) wired article on anoto.
If you have to use your own special paper and your own special pen to get it to work, why not just develop a wireless Wacom tablet? What a friggin' waste of money. But not as much of a waste as Logitech's next product...the DildoMan Optical Cordless! And for those who want a little more, the DildoMan Dual Optical. But, wait, there's more! If you're worried about CTS, there's the DildoMan Ergonomic Pro! And the best part is, you don't need $9.99...er..."media."
What a cool idea! I'm definitely willing to pay for the expensive paper, since this will make my everyday work so much easier. And $200 seems a little steep, but I'll buy it. What a cool idea... now I just have to lug around one notebook, and when I get home I can sort, file, and back up my notes for later retrieval.
Unfortunately, I don't own a single Windows PC. I've got Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, Debian, Redhat, Solaris, Plan 9... no Windows. Maybe I'll put this software on the same machine I'm going to buy to translate from my USB Satellite modem to my ethernet network.
Seriously, what are the people at Logitech thinking? Developing drivers for only one software platform? Aaaarrrgh!
--Bennett Prescott
Former Lord Of Packets
This Anoto pen
wants to be your friend
every page you send
we know end to end
we'll be watching you.
Every word you write
every pen you bite
every thing you draw
that's what we just saw
we'll be watching you
every check you sign
it knows just what time
when you draw a line
all your base are mine
we'll be watching you.
Maybe it's gotten better, but the initial Anoto documentation indicated that they handled coordination of everything written using Anoto. It's closely related to the fact that Anoto has a global data space for their paper - each piece is unique, and which lets them build interesting and special applications if they can see all the data, and part of their business plan was to sell off pieces of the map to companies who wanted to do things with it. There was some encryption stuff build in, but no real documentation on what information was available to whom. For most applications, that's not necessary - the user's PC could do most applications standalone, using the address space to do relative calculations (using x and y distance from the starting point, if the algorithms support that without central processing.)
I couldn't tell from the web page whether .NET was used just as a bunch of libraries (e..g for communicating with the pen via USB) or if it was also used to talk to Anoto themselves, or to Logitech - does anybody have more information?
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
This is an old concept. A friend of mine had this same idea years ago in Grad School. We were creating strategic techhology concepts and his digital pen was The JOT! Check it out: annoia.com. Go in, click on The Jot movie...
Get rid of the expensive paper! Make it do a few other things that might actually make my life easier! Then I'll spend the money.
Assuming they get the resoultion up, this device may be a very good input mechanism for eastern languages, such as traditional Chinese, Japanese and others. Keyboarding in Chinese is no picnic and requires some specialized skill. This could replace such keyboards with a pen and paper, expanding the number of people that can enter data into a computer to anyone who can read and write their native language.
How do you erase?
How do you chew on the end?
This pen is digital only, but it does already communicate via bluetooth.
what exactly are you supposed to do if, like me, you rotate your pen while you're writing, is it able to compensate being turned over on it's side or back when writing? I seriously doubt it.
Unfortunately, buying their "unique" paper is required if you use their system. And unfortunately, that would be their downfall, unless they change that uniqueness. There is really no need for so many unique pages - there are other things than can be done to use the technology - and hopefully someone will come up with it without us having to buy high priced paper from a monopoly.
The consumer can usually smell the "razor, blades" business model a mile away - and sometimes, do something about it. With s much gravy (like the printer cartridges), someone else is bound to enter the market.
And...are there countries where patents on such things are not honored - either overtly or covertly.
How about a different software driver and someone to sell similar paper, but without the "unique on each page" dealie? We can have a "next page now" symbol printed on the paper.
I sure that 0.3 mm point size is something that good laser or even ink-jet printer could do. So, what we need is good scanned image of clean paper, or create small programm that will make these patterns itself and print the output. How long before this will appers on Web?
I can confirm that Digital Whiteboards are in use. Especially in the consulting world - you can draw an idea up, print it out and hand it to people instantly.
They also remove the need for minute taking quite often.
Finally, if you love thinking on a BIG scale, they scale you BIG ideas down to a sheet of A4 comfortably.
As others have said, it all comes down to the "special paper", which is why some people are eager to see this succeed. Royalties forever.
But there are better solutions, namely small sheet-fed scanners. I have a Visioneer Strobe Pro, and it scans plenty fast, and is relatively small. It's many years old, and the base components aren't that large, so I could easily see someone coming out with a thick-ruler-sized one. If you made it long enough, you could even scan pages in notebooks with a clever "backing out" or "roller release" mechanism.
Benefits, of course, are that you can scan ANYTHING, and that even includes pre-printed forms and things like BOOKS.
I tried to use a 'regular pen' the other day to outline something in a meeting -
It had been so long since I had 'written' that I felt like I was using my left hand instead.
Even then, I kept using the Grafitti letter forms that I use to input text into my PalmPilot thingie.
"The" looked more like "7h3". When my boss asked me to xerox my notes for him, I just typed them up and emailed them instead.
My handwriting was never any good, but it's certainly gotten much worse lately...
Cheers,
Jim
-- My Weblog.
They say it has a proprietary pattern, so that's ;-)
probably copyright infringement
The dots are fairly fine (0.3 mm spaced), but I
would guess this would photocopy OK.
Anyway, the pen is a very cool idea, and maybe
that deserve to make extra money by selling the
paper for a while... they'll only keep on
doing it until a competitor comes along, who
sells the paper much cheaper.
I did renderings of this pen and I had the honor of taking it apart. Cool idea, but it felt cheap and bulky in the hand. They should have made it mount as a hard drive when it's in the cradle so you just drag page numbers off of it. Oh well. If anyone wants a prototype, the pieces will be up on ebay :)
I can't wait until they make this into a wireless protocol, and then people's pens start getting exploited. Can you wait until even something you write on PAPER ends up on someone's computer in CHINA?!?!!
An optical mouse does not require special proprietary paper. Long, long ago optical mice used special silver plates with printed gridwork thereon, but now optical mousies work anywhere. As I understand it, an optical mouse differences two images deducing motion without bothering with proprietary paper.
Why couldn't a motivated hacker kludge together a Cross pen and the guts of an optical mouse together to accomplish the same thing? Add a little switch on the ink refill that closes when you push down and this will work just like a mouse. Software? Any mouse driver.
For bonus points, use a wireless optical mouse in this franken-pen.
If some hacker demonstrates this and gets it into the public domain, we'll be able to buy these gizmos from all over.
Why can't this work?
"In Silicon Valley, paper is now worth than the ideas written on it!"
What's this Submit thingy do?
Bozo is the Brotherhood of Zips and Others. Bozos are people who band
together for fun and profit. They have no jobs. Anybody who goes on a
tour is a Bozo. Why does a Bozo cross the street? Because there's a Bozo
on the other side. It comes from the phrase vos otros, meaning others.
They're the huge, fat, middle waist. The archetype is an Irish drunk
clown with red hair and nose, and pale skin. Fields, William Bendix.
Everybody tends to drift toward Bozoness. It has Oz in it. They mean
well. They're straight-looking except they've got inflatable shoes. They
like their comforts. The Bozos have learned to enjoy their free time,
which is all the time.
-- Firesign Theatre, "If Bees Lived Inside Your Head"
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