I've always loved the idea of pens that work with your computer, either transcribing your hand-written notes or faithfully reproducing your drawings on your computer.
The promise, though, has always dwarfed the reality. Is that about to change?
""Pen-based"" computing (some people prefer ""paper-based"" computing, pointing out that the paper is what the whole thing rests on, so to speak) is all about replacing your computer keyboard and mouse and simply going back to writing.
Only, your pen and paper are smarter than they used to be, and can do things like figure out what you're writing, or drawing, and turn it into something you can read, edit, send or store on your computer.
In theory great; in practice, not enough people do it to take it mainstream.
LiveScribe hopes to change that. It differs from previous digital pens in several ways: Instead of merely trying to capture what you write, it captures what it hears, and is able to link what is written with what is recorded.
Tap on a word you've written and it will jump to that part of the recording. Write something and have the pen translate it into Japanese or Swedish (really).
All of this sounds amazing. It's the sort of thing that has the potential for revolutionizing the way we work.
Its inventor Jim Marggraff says, ""we can see this changing the world.""
Even my colleague, Walt Mossberg, got so excited about it, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, he insisted on keeping the product under wraps so it would be unveiled at his All Things Digital conference.
Despite the buzz about this product (and there should be; it's got some great features) it's actually just the latest offering in a series of innovations I've been playing with since 2000.
Each one has promised to free me from my laptop by letting me doodle on paper and magically see my doodles on my laptop (great for storing stuff, and even better if the software can convert my doodlings to text that I can edit.)
However, for the adult/professional market at least, each product has dazzled more than it has actually won over.
For some reason pens aren't as exciting to users as the idea of pens that do more.
Why? I think it's a few factors. Part of it is that all these products seem too fiddly, or at least require a change of habit.
They usually have several bits to them -- the special pen, the special paper, some device to get the pen to talk to the computer, the software on the computer, and other bits and bobs.
Another is dependability: We need to know they'll always work or we won't trust them to do the job alone (recording interviews and writing notes are the sort of things you don't want to mess up).
Third, it's because we're weird about our pens: We either have pens we love and wouldn't part with, or else we buy a particular brand we like by the truckload and lose them.
(I have one pen I love so much I had to catch a plane back to where I'd left it. And don't get me started on the kind of paper I need in order to unshackle my inner muse.)
In either case it's because we like the way they write, and the io Pen and its cousins all failed to understand that, giving us just a basic biro-type nib that doesn't make us want to write: It's like us buying a beautiful new computer and then grabbing the cheapest keyboard you can find in Carrefour.
So, my soapbox lesson for the day: Paper- or pen-based computing is a great notion -- and may yet have its day -- but developers need to understand that whatever the gizmo can do, it's first and foremost a pen.
(Just as a smartphone, however snazzy, is first and foremost a phone.)
So make it a great pen first, and then add the bells and whistles. Offer all sorts of different cartridge types and colored inks/gels. Make it a pleasure to doodle with, and then add the fancy stuff.
Then we'll grab a hold of the rest of the technology, and this time we may not let go.
Jeremy Wagstaff writes a weekly technology column for The Wall Street Journal Asia. His guide to technology, Loose Wire, is available in bookshops or on Amazon. He can be found online at www.loosewireblog.com or via e-mail at jeremy@loose-wire.com.
