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'Cut and Paste' Is Out, 'Pick and Drop' Is In
Roland Piquepaille writes "How do you exchange a file with a colleague or a photograph with a family member? Chances are that you cut the desired element and paste it into your e-mail program to send it. Now, imagine yourself in a meeting, picking a file on your PDA with a digital pen and using the same pen to drop it on your friend's laptop screen. This is exactly what Jun Rekimoto and his team at Sony Interaction Laboratory have developed with their 'pick and drop' technique. BBC News looks at this project in Digital pen takes on mouse. Because it's based on cheap and existing components, such a system might be released in the near future, though Sony hasn't announced any plans to do it. You'll find more details and pictures in this overview."
The question is, how long before 'pick and drop' is patented and no one else can use it without paying exhorbant liscencing fees.
What's sad about the above statement is it's not meant as humor.
I'm not going to give up on the usefulness of my Cue Cat just yet.
This thing'll be used to drop porn on the board room's projector during a meeting, a'la Fight Club, or will be used to write nasty things about the presenter, who would probably be facing the audience rather than the screen...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Check out the paper he submitted at CHI. Also the BBC has a story about this at this address.
In short, the pen doesn't actually store the file, but uses a third server to mark and notify which file should be copied to where...
So why use the pen at all .... why not use biometrics ... maybe fingerprints .... grab (pinch) a file and move it to the other guys machine .... you would just have to make sure that your finger print is readable on each end.
A number of posters seem to have missed the point on how it is implemented (not surprising because that is hard to find in the articles). The key concept seems to be some shared space such as a server. The BBC article says:
"The 'pick and drop' system was developed using the Mitsubishi Amity handheld pen computer and a Wacom PL300 pen-sensitive desktop screen.
Pens are given a unique ID, which is readable by the computer when the pen is close to its screen.
When a person taps on an icon with the pen, the computer contacts a 'pen manager' server, via a fixed or wireless connection, and the object is attached to the pen, although the pen itself has no storage capacity.
When the pen tip comes close to the screen of another device, a shadow of the attached object appears on its screen.
Tapping the pen tip instructs the 'pen manager' server to copy the file to that location."