The Hindu : This pen is mightier than the keyboard... and pricier

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Aug 17, 2003

National

National

This pen is mightier than the keyboard... and pricier

By Anand Parthasarathy

Bangalore Aug. 16. The Information Technology (IT) industry might parade an array of high-tech gadgets for digital data entry, but most customers still prefer making brief notes the old fashioned way: with pen and paper.

This is the conclusion reached by a survey commissioned by Logitech, the Switzerland-based company, best known for its range of personal computer accessories such as the mouse and the keyboard Tablet PCs that allow you to do your scribbling on an `electronic slate'.

Most hand held computers or Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) expect you to jab at a virtual keyboard using a tiny stick and almost all other computing devices come with a keyboard. But an overwhelming 92 per cent of the respondents said they still liked to use pen and paper for those quick notes one makes at home or in the office. One in three said the very act of writing something down was a memory aid. Half of them said their earth-shaking ideas came at any time — not just when they were seated comfortably in front of a PC.

Interestingly, the survey of 1000 Internet users conducted for Logitech by Greenfield Online also revealed that a majority — 70 per cent — stored their essential information on a PC.

And one in two spent at least 15 minutes in a week hunting for misplaced handwritten notes.

Intrigued by the mismatch between the need faced by so many to use computers as digital stores of information, and the preference for an `analog' writing media such as pen and paper, Logitech set its research team on the job of reconciling these two facts of life with a single product. It has come up with the "IO Personal Digital Pen". One can write with the pen on paper in the normal way, while an optical sensor at the tip remembers everything that is written — up to 40 written pages.

It works like a miniature digital camera capturing about 50 shots a second of what is being written. By attaching the IO Digital Pen through the USB port, one can then download the contents to a PC or notebook and store them as files. It is a product that tries to give you the best of both worlds.

But it comes at a price which is a wee bit more than your two rupee ball point — the international price is $ 180 (Rs. 9000), but this is expected to come down to around $100 quite soon. Many companies are betting the Digital Pen will catch on even at this price. 3M, makers of the ubiquitous yellow "PostIt" notepad are creating a special paper to go with the Digital Pen. Hitachi is said to be working on a corporate version of the device and some American companies are adapting it for specific applications such as traffic violation tickets issued by police.

Logitech, itself, has just invested $15 million in the Swedish company, Anoto, which created the basic technology for the device. The digital pen is clearly mightier than the keyboard — but it is going to cost a lot more too.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National