Digital paper

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Digital paper, also known as interactive paper, is patterned paper used in conjunction with a digital pen to create handwritten digital documents.[citation needed] The printed dot pattern uniquely identifies the position coordinates on the paper. The digital pen uses this pattern to store the handwriting and upload it to a computer.

Digital paper should not be confused with electronic paper.

Contents

The paper

The dot pattern is a kind of two dimensional barcode; the most common is the proprietary Anoto pattern. In the Anoto pattern, each dot is spaced about 0.3mm apart; the full pattern consists of 669,845,157,115,773,458,169 dots, and encompasses an area exceeding 4.6 million km² (this corresponds to 73 trillion sheets of letter-size paper).[1]

The complete pattern space is divided into various domains. These domains can be used to define paper types, or to indicate the paper's purpose (for example, memo formatting, personal planners, notebook paper, Post-it notes, et cetera).

The Anoto pattern can be printed onto almost any paper, using a standard printing process of at least 600 dpi resolution (some claim a required resolution of 1000 dpi), and carbon-based black ink. The paper can be any shape or size greater than 2 mm to a side. The ink absorbs infra red light transmitted from the digital pen; the pen contains a receiver which interprets the pattern of light reflected from the paper. Other colors of ink, including non-carbon-based black, can be used to print information which will be visible to the user, and invisible to the pen.

Available pen brands

One thing to note is that the core technology and, in most cases, optical assemblies and ASICs, are either supplied by Anoto, or built to their specifications. The Leapfrog FLY is the only pen which appears to significantly differ; it contains both a speaker and a slot for program cartridges to be added. Also, since most of these products are sold for vertical markets rather than consumer markets, "available" can often mean only large orders, not individual consumer purchases.

  • Leapfrog FLY pentop This pen utilizes the same basic technology as the other pens, but also includes a built-in speaker, on-board handwriting recognition and text-to-speech. These additional features allow the user to get immediate feedback from the pen when interacting with the pattern domain used.
  • Logitech IO pen Logitech has made three Anoto-based pens, the io, io2 and io2 with Bluetooth. The first two were readily available in the market, but the io2 with Bluetooth appears to only be available in 5-packs for vertical market applications.
  • Magicomm G303 The Magicomm G303 is specially manufactured by Hitachi Maxell and is available from Magicomm, who are a Premier Application Service Provider. The Magicomm G303 is in use by the UK Police operating with Mercury as a data transport mechanism for the pen's data.
  • Maxell digital pen The Maxell DP-201 is available, but few resellers carry it.
  • Adapx Penx The Adapx Penx and Dox are ruggedized implementations of the Anoto platform, designed for long-term field use. The Penx pen itself is very similar in size to other vendors' pens, while the dock is somewhat larger.
  • Nokia SU-27W was announced for release on December 20, 2007 in Japan.
  • Nokia SU-1B Nokia's first digital pen, now discontinued. It uses Bluetooth or USB.
  • Fly Fusion is marketed for children and students.

Products in the pipeline

  • LiveScribe has said in press releases that they are targeting a Q1 2008 release. Their web site has an animation stating "The pen is smarter in", followed by a timer that counts down to midnight, January 29, 2008 (EST). This date has been pushed back to 31 April, 2008 [citation needed]
  • EPOS demonstrated a digital pen at CES in 2007. It is not based on the Anoto paper system, but rather upon a clip-on position sensor that is placed at the top of the notebook being written upon.

Software

PaperToolKit is an open-source project, written in Java 6 and Flash, targeting Anoto pens. It currently works only on Windows, as the Anoto SDK requires .NET.

References

  1. ^ WO patent 2008013761, "", granted [[]] 

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