From the Palm To the Pen.

Today's PDAs and mobile computing devices share a similar structure; they fit in the palm of your hand and you write with a pen or type with a finger or two on their surface. Leading up to today's PDA form factors, we've witnessed some interesting evolutionary changes as several generations of these devices have risen from the primordial lint in our pockets. But now, brought to our attention by RCFoC reader Peter Quodling, British Telecom is exploring a rather revolutionary step, called the SmartQuill, which makes THE PEN THE PDA!

http://www.innovate.bt.com/showcase/smartquill/images/gold6a.jpg

Looking at the picture, you can see that this futuristic pen writes directly on paper as with today's CrossPad (http://www.cross-pcg.com/crosspad/index.html). But unlike that electronic pen-on-paper-on-active-clipboard, SmartQuill allows you to write directly on any surface, or on no surface at all (by waving it in the air)! Accelerometers take note of the twists and turns of your handwriting, translating it into text that is displayed on SmartQuill's sleek built-in screen. (There's also the possibility of viewing a full page of text through a special monocular magnified "virtual" screen that could be built into the end of the pen). Your words of wisdom can also be uploaded to your PC through that "digital inkwell," while files that you might want to view on the pen (such as your schedule) are downloaded to the SmartQuill as well.

The SmartQuill is also a 3-D mouse; twist it in the air a certain way and you can scroll around the data on its screen. In fact, move it just the right ways and you have a perfect tool for navigating through 3-D spreadsheets, diving (penning?) down into the detail below a given cell...

This pen, for which BT has already applied for patents, would have 4 megabytes of memory which could also be used to record and playback voice messages. And the SmartQuill would run on a AAA battery.

It's an interesting idea, and it even comes with one attribute that makes the entire history of pens pale by comparison -- if someone else picks up your SmartQuill and tries to write with it -- it won't. Because your handwriting is as unique as your fingerprint, and SmartQuill can be told to only listen to its master's voice -- er, fingers.

Will SmartQuill, when it leaves the lab, write new chapters in how people and machines come together? I'm afraid that that handwriting's not yet on the wall. But SmartQuill is a good reminder that, as computers continue to get vastly smaller and to invade the common "things" around us, the day may come when we lose the distinction between the devices we use to interact with our computers, and the computers themselves. Our "mice" and other input devices may well BE the computers!

But I do wonder just how realistic SmartQuill will become -- will its digital ink bits dry out if we forget to cap it, or leak all over our fingers?