Thoughts on pen computing...

[Twonky]

Hi guys,

I just had a thought....
All this talk about keyboards and stuff....
what about just writing the input you want on a note pad with a pen like the fly pentop from leapfrog... I now the fly doesn't have an USB interface, but I do now that there are pen computing solutions that do have an USB interface.... but I think they require drivers.... I have never seen one of those thingies...

I just thought it would be like really cool to flip out your 770 and take a pen and write your input off-screen.... that way you utilise the screen size too a maximum, do not need screen protectors, and I bet you will get some attention from the people around you ;-)

So what do you guys think, feasable?

Cheers

[drazvan]

I think you're talking about the Anoto pens (www.anoto.com). Unfortunately Anoto SDKs cost an arm and a leg (2500 EUR for the non-commercial starter kit, 7500 EUR to go commercial with anything). The pens can communicate over Bluetooth or USB, I think Bluetooth might make more sense than USB. I have been playing with the idea for quite a while now, I wanted to use an Anoto pen (made by Hitachi Maxell) as a stylus for on and off screen writing for the Nokia 770. You could do very cool stuff like dragging and dropping from the physical world (touch a piece of paper that "contains" content, then drag that content to your 770 for viewing), etc. Unfortunately I don't have 7500 EUR to throw at this, so it will have to wait.

Razvan

[Twonky]

Hi Razvan,

Right now I know why I have not seen any of these things live ;-)
I hadn't expeted such a price tag (I seem to remember the leapfrog fly costing something like 150 euro's)

Too bad, could have been cool....
Or do you think we could find a sponser ;)

Twonky