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.

Comments

It must be pretty cool, then...

[modus]

"How cool would this be with support for a wireless protocol?"

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_CHA TPEN), pretty darn cool.

How it works

[interiot]

This page describes how it works in more detail:

• 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).

• 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.

So my first question is: how much writing can it store if it's constantly taking pictures?

Re:How it works

[TheTomcat]

I'm sure it doesn't store whole pictures, in much the same manner that an optical mouse only sends coordinate (delta) information, not whole captures.

Also, optical mice (mouses), used to require special mousing surfaces. Now they work (nearly) anywhere (not on glass.. shiny black, etc.. I keep mine on my pad of graph paper, 'cause the wood on my desk is glossy and doesn't track with complete accuracy). I suspect that if this technology catches on, they'll be able to do away with the special paper.

S

Re:The ultimate forger's tool.

[Scott Tracy]

Unless you loan the pen to someone who has the special paper, that won't work.

Anoto uses paper with grey dots on it, aligned in a grid, that (for some reason or another) is part of a larger 60,000,000-sq-km unique grid (so no two pieces of paper are the same). The 'pen' has a camera in it, that captures the grey dots as you write, and stores the coordinates. This must use very little memory, but does force you to use more expensive (and likely harder-to-find) paper.

Still, I've preordered mine at amazon.com for $199. It's supposed to be available Nov 8.

Re:Paper.

[Fnkmaster]

Because it doesn't store what you write per se. It has a miniature camera that tracks the microscopic dot pattern on their proprietary digital paper, and uses the location of the surrounding dots to exactly identify its coordinates over time. So it really stores a sequence of coordinates, which it then dumps to PC, which reconstructs the lines connecting the tiny coordinate "snapshots" and results in writing.

I can certainly imagine ways of doing that that DON'T require digital paper. Either this was the easiest way to implement it (unlikely) or they saw that the real margins for this market are in selling digital paper on an ongoing basis (much more likely).

Re:Paper.

[Lil'wombat]

The deal with the paper is that the pattern of dots is unique and no- repeating up to a area about the size of the North America. The business plan behind Annoto is to license sections of that mapspace to companys.

Catalog company X could license 100 sq ft for use in their catalogs - using 2mm at a time for a check box next to each item in their catalog. When you check the box, the pen records those cordinates, when you download the map locations trigger an order form to be filled out on the company's catalog web site. Or 3M could sell POST-IT Faxes - a post-it with a check box to fax, so that when you link your pen with the internet , the message you just scribbled is faxed away.

My only concern with the company is the Cue-Cat esque business model of makeing people have to pass their informtion through the annoto servers to perform anything useful.

big deal...

[Lumpy]

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.

Re:Is each page in the pad unique? Each notebook?

[qengho]

is every page in the special notebook unique? And is each NOTEBOOK unique?

Yes. Here's a Wired story about the guys who invented the paper.

Rimshot...

[Inoshiro]

"But worst of all, the software that decodes it REQUIRES the .NET framework to run -- so much for Linux!"

This .NET framework?

Re:Special Paper = Useless

[tswinzig]

JESUS H. CHRIST. If I see one more comment like this modded as +5 I'm going to cry!

The paper *IS* the technology development in this case. If you don't understand that, please look at their site again!

If you would just think about how this could possibly work for a second, you'd realize that.

Imagine a pen that works your way -- like an optical mouse that tracks movement. Write a long letter out by hand, and upload it to your computer. How would you expect it to look? If you said "just like my letter," you're wrong! With your 'optical mouse' technology, you'd get (if you're lucky) one long sentence.

The special paper is what allows this thing to know WHERE the pen tip is at at all times. You could draw a circle in the upper right corner, draw a square in the lower left corner, then go back and draw an X in the circle. Then flip a page in the notebook and write a letter. Then go back to page one and draw some more objects.

Now stick the pen in the USB device, download it, and you'll see two separate pages, just exactly as you drew them.

And this is only scratching the surface... no pun intended.