New 'Pen' Writes Data Into Computers

Sept. 20 -- The pen is mightier than the sword. And in some cases, it's better than a computer keyboard, too.

Consider, for example, how keyboards can be great for entering text information, but next to useless for more graphical tasks — drawing a flow chart or sketching a draft of a new product idea.

And even for some text-based tasks — taking discrete notes at a business meeting, for example — a noisy laptop keyboard just can't compare to the silent simplicity of pen and paper.

But soon, Logitech, a maker of computer keyboards and mice in Fremont, Calif., will release what it believes will be a device that could bridge the seemingly incompatible old and new worlds.

At DEMOmobile, a trade conference held earlier this week in La Jolla, Calif., attending industry executives got their first look at the Logitech io digital pen. Yes, that's the name — io.

How It Works

The writing instrument looks and functions much like a chunky ball point. Drag the pen across a plain sheet of paper and it will leave a trail of ordinary ink. But the "digital" part comes from the technology, developed by a Swedish company called Anoto, buried within the device and on the special sheets of paper that comes with it.

Each sheet of paper contains a unique pattern of microscopic dots spaced approximately 0.3 millimeters apart. The dot patterns act as tiny "maps" for each page. As a user writes on the paper, a tiny camera near the tip of the Logitech pen captures the pattern of dots that whiz by the lens.

A computer processor in the pen crunches through the dot patterns in each image to mathematically determine where the point of the pen is on the page at the moment the picture was taken. By following the changing dot patterns from image to image, the pen creates a virtual trail of where its point has been — and therefore which parts of the page have ink marks.

The pen contains enough computer memory to store the location data for up to 40 pages of writing. A special cradle, included with the Logitech device, transfers the information from the pen's memory to any PC that runs Microsoft's Windows operating system. The cradle also also recharges the built-in batteries that power the pen's camera.