Stylish

As some of you know, I decided to write my research paper on the Smartpen. For those of you who don’t know what it is and didn’t get to read my paper, I’ll explain what it is and some of the ways it’s being used today.

The Smartpen is the next evolution of pen technology. This statements is as weird to read as it is to write, but you can actually track the evolution of the pen through history. In ancient Rome a stylus instrument was used to carve words into wax tablets. After that came the quill pen, then the fountain pen, to the ball point pen, and now the next stage, the Smartpen.

The way it works is quite amazing. It functions as a normal ballpoint pen does, more or less. The difference is that the Smartpen has a small computer on it for recording what you write. The way it records what you write is by a small infrared camera on the tip of the pen. However, it cannot just record everything you write; you must use a special kind of paper that is a complement to the pen, called Dot Paper. The Dot Paper is exactly what it sounds like; it’s paper that has thousands of microscopical dots on it. They are invisible to the human eye, but the infrared camera can detect them. When it detects each dot, it snaps an instant photo and stores the position inside the pen’s memory. Then you can upload your notes to a computer with a USB cable and presto! You can also write notes and display them on a computer screen in real time, so it functions almost like a tablet PC.

There have been several cool uses of this technology. It has mainly been used for educational purposes, from what I’ve found. Even more interesting is that some foreign companies have started using it for biometric signatures, in the very real sense of the term (for enhanced security, they track the subtle writing patterns when someone signs their name to verify that it is the same person). Pretty heavy stuff.

So that is my research paper in a nutshell. When I’m finished revising it I’ll post it so if anyone is interested, feel free to read it.