On: The Pen Gets Mightier

[gojomo]

The pen depends on this technology -- a special dot pattern on the required paper allowing the pen to know the page and position where it is pointed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoto

The first 'C-Pen' using the technique was launched in Sweden in 1998, internationally in 1999. Jim Marggraff's LiveScribe was formed in 2007, to create other products based on the technology -- following the successful 'pentop' product Marggraff created at LeapFrog using the paper.

[joezydeco → gojomo]

Anoto is pretty damned cool and I've been tracking the products for a while. LeapFrog has 4-5 products using the tech now (the Tag family) and has cost reduced it significantly.

I guess Microsoft even considered it a threat to the point where they announced their own product as one of their amazing R&D discoveries, but quickly dropped any discussion of it.