A new Israeli-developed electronic pen enables writing on ordinary paper to be saved to computer instantly. The pen enables handwriting to be entered directly into a computer, cell phone or personal digital assistant (PDA), enabling handwritten data to be sent via e-mail.
“The pen was designed by Pegasus, an Israeli technology company. "The first system we developed was a mouse for three-dimensional games," Pegasus cofounder and CEO Gideon Shenholz told Globes. "We decided to switch to an electronic pen at a later stage. The transition required further development, because the technology needed for the electronic pen is more complex than the technology for a 3D mouse. A mouse doesn't require maximal accuracy of movement. In handwriting, missing even the slightest movement will ruin what is being writing, and the signal processing must therefore be at a far higher level.”
The idea came from the fact that many immigrants wanted to send emails in Russian or Chinese but they didn’t have keyboard’s available in their languages,” Pegasus’ VP of Sales and Marketing said on Israel National Radio’s Eli Stutz and Yishai Fleisher show. “Our target audience in China, Japan and Korea – as well as toward immigrants from those countries living in the west.”
The electronic pen looks and behaves like a regular pen, with standard refilling and a regular ball-point that writes on paper. The electronic component installed in the pen is a small ultrasonic transmitter, with two ultrasonic receivers of very strong processing capacity contained in the base unit.
"When the pen starts writing, the base unit follows its movement, and receives what it is writing through ultrasonic signals. Once the signals are received, the processor turns them into information about the precise location of the pen point on the paper. The processing unit continuously processes the data in order to obtain a continuous image of what is being written," said Shenholz.
The company also produces a mobile version of the product, which stores the written information for later input. The mobile version is ideal for students who need to sketch during a lecture, doctors writing information during a visit, or law enforcement officials needing to sketch a crime scene.
The technology currently transmits the written data as an image, which therefore cannot be edited by word-processors or email software, but Pegasus is working with other companies that have developed handwriting identification software to make it possible to obtain material from the pen as a typed word document.
“The pen was designed by Pegasus, an Israeli technology company. "The first system we developed was a mouse for three-dimensional games," Pegasus cofounder and CEO Gideon Shenholz told Globes. "We decided to switch to an electronic pen at a later stage. The transition required further development, because the technology needed for the electronic pen is more complex than the technology for a 3D mouse. A mouse doesn't require maximal accuracy of movement. In handwriting, missing even the slightest movement will ruin what is being writing, and the signal processing must therefore be at a far higher level.”
The idea came from the fact that many immigrants wanted to send emails in Russian or Chinese but they didn’t have keyboard’s available in their languages,” Pegasus’ VP of Sales and Marketing said on Israel National Radio’s Eli Stutz and Yishai Fleisher show. “Our target audience in China, Japan and Korea – as well as toward immigrants from those countries living in the west.”
The electronic pen looks and behaves like a regular pen, with standard refilling and a regular ball-point that writes on paper. The electronic component installed in the pen is a small ultrasonic transmitter, with two ultrasonic receivers of very strong processing capacity contained in the base unit.
"When the pen starts writing, the base unit follows its movement, and receives what it is writing through ultrasonic signals. Once the signals are received, the processor turns them into information about the precise location of the pen point on the paper. The processing unit continuously processes the data in order to obtain a continuous image of what is being written," said Shenholz.
The company also produces a mobile version of the product, which stores the written information for later input. The mobile version is ideal for students who need to sketch during a lecture, doctors writing information during a visit, or law enforcement officials needing to sketch a crime scene.
The technology currently transmits the written data as an image, which therefore cannot be edited by word-processors or email software, but Pegasus is working with other companies that have developed handwriting identification software to make it possible to obtain material from the pen as a typed word document.