Writing in pen, ink, and pixels
Technology-packed pens send your doodles straight to a computer screen
A third technology should make its debut next year. OTM's Vpen system relies on eye-safe laser beams emitted from the device. Expected to cost $100, the pen would track its position based on the Doppler effect: slight shifts in the wavelength of light reflected from nearby objects as the pen moves. OTM's device registers movement whether or not the pen is put to paper, which opens it to other uses--as a computer mouse, for example. Says Chairman Gilad Lederer of Israel-based OTM: "We might have been better off calling it the Vmouse."
That might improve sales in the United States, where a half-skilled typist speeds past any hand scribe. Digital pens may have more appeal in Asia, whose character-based languages have hampered PC use. "Keyboards aren't seen as the superior input device in Asia," Lederer says. The pens may also fill a niche in Europe, where sending text messages via cellphones is popular. Scribbling a note should be easier than thumb-typing on a phone keypad--it takes six keystrokes just to type vi (we in Swedish).
Then there's the pens' retro-tech appeal. Says Jan Andersson, head of U.S. operations for Anoto, "Now we can tell grandmother she had it right--we're going back to paper and pen."
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