Skip to main content

Wacom Bamboo Spark creates digital copies of written notes – no special paper required

If you want a smartpen – which digitizes your handwriting and transmits it to a computer or mobile device – you currently have your choice of models including the Neo Smartpen N2, the LiveScribe Sky or the Orée Stylograph. All of those pens, however, require you to use special paper that's unique to that particular product. By contrast, Wacom's just-announced Bamboo Spark system works with a non-electronic pen and whatever A5-sized paper you've got on hand.
The three earlier-mentioned smartpens all have tiny cameras located by the nib, that are able to gauge the pen's position on the page by imaging patterns printed on the paper.
Bamboo Spark instead utilizes a smart folio, which the paper is laid upon. That folio contains an electro-magnetic resonance board, which is able to sense the location of the tip of the included Bamboo Spark ballpoint pen. This allows it to record pen strokes (it doesn't matter if it's text or drawings), and their position relative to one another on the page.
Up to 100 pages of that data can be stored on the folio's onboard memory, then synced to an app on a paired iOS or Android mobile device when convenient. That app also lets users perform basic editing of their notes, although more options are available if the data is uploaded from the mobile device to a free Wacom Cloud account.
The folio is charged via USB, and is good for eight hours of use per charge.
Bamboo Spark is available in three models, all priced at US$159.95, €159.90 or £119.99. A pack of three ink refills for the pen costs $9.99.
Source: Wacom

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

10 URLs to Find Out What Google Knows About You

Google is much more than just a search giant. It is also home to many of your favorite products: Gmail, YouTube, and Chrome, just to name a few. Apart from that, it also offers many products to help you  keep track of your data . Most of these are  hidden deep  inside the My Account dashboard, which many users don’t really know of. These hidden tools  may reveal interesting details  about your usage of Google’s many services. We’ve compiled a list of important Google URLs of some  hidden tools  that carry information of what you did with Google, mostly from the searches that you have made on their many products, the voice searches and typed out Google searches that you have made. Are you ready to  find out what how Google knows about you ? 1.  Google Dashboard Google Dashboard offers  transparency and control over the personal data stored with your Google Account. You can  view  and  manage the data gener...

Edible water balloons that could get rid of the need for plastic bottles

In case you didn’t know, bottled water is destroying the planet. We know that we need to be drinking plenty of water. It’s important. But the plastic bottles they’re sold in are terrible for the environment. One solution is using reusable bottles that you can fill from any nearby taps instead of buying a new bottle each time. Another solution is much more exciting. A group of engineers from Skipping Rocks Lab have developed a wonderful thing called The Ooho!. It’s a globe filled water that you can pop in your mouth whole. The outer shell is made of algae, so it’s edible and biodegradable. Meaning there’s no need for packaging or plastic – the globes of water are self-contained and ready to consume. Exciting, right? Plus they’re wobbly and they look cool, which is always a bonus. The team have now created a crowdfunding page to make their creation available to the public, with goals of selling The Ooho! at festival and marathons within the next 12 m...

Casio PicapiCamera iPhone app is the world's first to use visible light communication technology

PicapiCamera, developed by Casio, is the world's first iPhone app which uses visible light communication technology. To send and receive data via the app, the message to be sent is encoded using red, green and blue flashing lights and shown on the display. The receiver points their iPhone at the flashing lights and the data is transferred. "There are two approaches to communication using visible light. One is to embed data in the light from illumination sources, by turning it on and off at high speed, as a natural way of communicating information. With that approach, devices use photodiodes. The other approach involves image sensors. A device that captures light is a camera, so the idea is to relate light obtained by a camera to information. We're using the camera approach - visible light communication through image sensors." "When exchanging addresses, this system can send addresses to up to five people, rather than just one-to-one." "If yo...