|
TIME MAGAZINE, JUNE 4, 2001, VOL.157 NO.22
The Write Stuff
Still hanging on to your Bic? This new technology will let you use pen and ink and be digital, too
By APARISIM GHOSH Lund
I love my keyboard. In Hong Kong, where I live, I do all of my work on it, typing in articles, letters, e-mail, memos, rEsumEs. For me, a pen, whether Mont Blanc or Bic, holds no more charm than a bullock-cart or a charcoal stove. And paper is for reading, packaging and folding into little planes. In my world, keyboard and trackball reign supreme. So the folks at Anoto AB have their work cut out for them if they're going to convince me that plain old writing is the best way to get on the Internet. This start-up Swedish company in the ancient university town of Lund is staking its future on pen and paper. Heck, even its name is derived from the Latin for "I write."
 |
We're not talking about just any pen and paper, of course. To both words, add this century's prefix of choice: digital. The pen "reads" what it writes on the special paper, then transmits this information as e-mail, fax or mobile-phone message. Why bother, I ask, when keyboards are already ubiquitous and so damn easy to use? "There's a reason people still use pen and paper," says Anoto's director of new concepts, Linus Wiebe, with only a hint of admonishment. "It's not because they are stupid or old-fashioned, but because pen and paper are the most innovative way to express yourself. It's a technology that's been refined over thousands of years."
Later, I put the question to Anoto founder Christer FAhraeus and get the same gentle reproach. "For 15 years, we've been pushed in the direction of keyboards," he says. "But still handwriting is the major way of taking notes and documenting meetings."
He has a point. After all, I'm jotting down his words in my notebook, not keying them into a computer. And unlike reporters, many people need more than words to express themselves: architects, engineers, graphic designers, artists. Sure, you can "draw" on graphics tablets, but these are no real substitute for pen and paper. Then there's the two-thirds of the world that doesn't use the Roman alphabet. You can get keyboards in Chinese and Hindi, but speed is a problem if you have to hit several keys to make a single character. Writing is intuitive, natural. But is it the wave of the future?
Here's how Anoto's technology works. Printed on the digital paper are microscopic dots within a near-invisible grid of 2 mm by 2 mm squares. Each square is unique, and in the realm of mathematical possibility there are enough such squares to cover the surface of the United States—four times. The digital pen, or Chatpen, as Anoto has christened it, contains a tiny infrared camera that recognizes the patterns and essentially photographs, 100 times a second, the pen's interaction with the paper. In this way, it "reads" what's been written. The pen then processes and transmits this information, via a mobile phone or computer, to the Internet, where Anoto's servers help determine where to send it.
The simplest application of this technology is related to basic communications. You take notes at a meeting, say, and they're e-mailed or faxed wherever you want, without having to input them into a computer. Because what you've written is reproduced exactly, you can send any kind of information in any script.
But that's only the beginning. Using a Chatpen, you could check a box on an advertisement printed on digital paper (in your local newspaper or in this magazine) and alert the advertiser that you want more information. Or imagine catalogs printed on digital paper: just check off the items you want and write down your credit-card number or whatever future payment system takes hold—no need to make a call or go to a website. Your local supermarket could send you lists of everything it has in stock, and you mark what you need and write down the quantities and your address for home delivery. If you're going out on the town, just circle the area you plan to visit on a map printed on digital paper, and your cell phone (or handheld computer) receives a list of restaurants in the neighborhood, complete with menus and phone numbers.
Got any other ideas? Contact Anoto. It expects independent developers to come up with hundreds of applications. Anoto is also working with penmakers like Mont Blanc to develop variants of the Chatpen, with papermakers like 3M (of Post-it fame) and Esselte, and with mobile network operators like Vodaphone. The initial Anoto-enabled pens, manufactured by Ericsson and Motorola, should be on the market this fall when the first network operator, the Swedish unit of Vodaphone, offers the service to subscribers. By that time, digital paper will be available in notepads, organizers and Post-it notes.
Within two years, FAhraeus predicts, most network operators will follow Vodaphone's lead. The Anoto concept gives them a cool new service to offer subscribers—and a way to collect new fees. Paper-makers, naturally, are sold on the prospect of turning their centuries-old product into a digital tool for a fraction of a cent per sheet.
The moment of truth arrives when I'm invited to test the first Chatpen, developed in-house by Anoto. As writing instruments go, this one weighs no more than your average Mont Blanc and is about as long. But it's twice as thick: the infrared camera, which peeks out from under the nib of a basic ballpoint, seems to take up a lot of room. Most folks would find this pen too fat for comfortable writing. Wiebe assures me this is only a prototype, and the final product will be practically indistinguishable from an ordinary pen.
The paper certainly looks no different from everyday A4; the dots are invisible to the naked eye. On closer examination, there's a narrow panel along the bottom, designated for an e-mail address or fax number. Two small boxes are marked "e-mail" and "fax" and a third, slightly larger, "send."
In theory I should be able to write on the paper, scribble an e-mail address (say, mine) on the designated panel and then check the send box. Then, in a blink of an eye, my written note would be sent by the pen to my mobile phone, my phone would send it to the Anoto server, the server would recognize which set of dots the note came from—but not the contents of the note itself—and pass it on to the server of the manufacturer of the paper I've written on. The manufacturer's server would execute the send command, zap the note to my e-mail address and deliver an exact reproduction of my handwritten note to my computer.
We can't test all of this today because the local mobile network operator doesn't offer Anoto-enabled services. So for this demonstration a laptop computer will have to play the part of the mobile phone, the Anoto server and the manufacturer's server.
Ready? Let's go. In the beginning, writing is difficult. Maybe it's just me; my handwriting was the bane of my schoolteachers and has gotten progressively more illegible ever since. The thickness of the chrome-colored Chatpen doesn't help. Worse, my normal writing grip—I use my middle finger to hold up the pen—obstructs the camera. As I try out a new grip, my first scribbles are ugly scratches. Wiebe encourages me to write large, looping letters. This helps considerably. Soon, I can write comfortably at normal speed.
I write myself a note, then drag the Chatpen across the send box. The note appears almost instantaneously on the laptop screen. I draw a flower: on the paper it's in plain black ink, but I use the Chatpen to assign colors to the different lines. I check "send" again: a pretty, colorful flower appears on the laptop screen. O.K., not so pretty: I'm as bad at drawing as writing, but the colors are good. For variation I write on a Post-it note, then on an organizer. It all works perfectly. Regrettably my handwriting doesn't improve: some things are beyond the power of technology.
So here I am, back in Hong Kong at my beloved keyboard, which keeps me legible and—as a direct consequence—legitimately employed. I'm pretty certain most people will continue to type, rather than write, all their important documents. But I must confess to being seduced by Anoto's basic premise: old-fashioned pen and paper can be reinvented to fit the digital age. When the Chatpen comes onto the market, I won't be the first in line to buy one. But I doubt I will be able to resist for too long.
Related Sites
Anoto
Note: Pages will open in a new browser window
External sites are not endorsed by Time Inc.
More The Future Stories
The Write Stuff
Still hanging on to your Bic? This new technology will let you use pen and ink and be digital, too
What's Next?
Draft: Proposed United Nations Treaty on Human to Smart Object Interrelations
I'm Afraid I Can't Do That
Getting computers to think out-of-the-box is a tough job, but the payoffs will be enormous
A Day in My Life, 2025
My wife's a hologram, my boss is buggy and my virtual analyst doesn't understand me
|
advertisement
|
|
Libraries
Full Contents: all of the stories in one simple list
Multimedia:  the home of our video, audio and interactive features
Video: CNN circles the globe for how technology is changing our lives
Toolbox: software you may need for this site
|
|
|
Subscribe to TIME
Magazine
Stories from this week's issue
Ethics
Big Brother is watching the Net. Do you care?
Living
Talk to your thermostat, surf from the toilet, phone your fridge
Entertainment
Music mixing as easy as logging on to a website and typing on a keyboard
|
|
Specials
CNN's hour-long special program on Our Interactive World, hosted by Michael Holmes and Tumi Makgabo, featuring luminaries from the world of information technology
Brian Bennett, reporter for TIME magazine, interviews MTV Asia's LiLi, a virtual veejay
Lili on her life and work: chat transcript from May 31, 2001
|
|
|
U.S. | Asia | Europe | Current Issue
U.S. | Asia | Europe | Sci-Tech
[an error occurred while processing this directive] | You are