Apple Patents Stylus Like Pen For Easy Note-Taking and Sharing

Tech giant Apple Inc. has gathered attention as it patented a stylus-like pen that can detect user’s hand movements and produces digital copy of the handwritten material. US Patent and Trademark Office has awarded a patent to Apple US for “communicating stylus”. The sensors include accelerometers, wireless communication hardware and in-built storage. The smart-pen could be used to generate the digital versions of handwritten material or drawings created using the pen. Looking at the concept, as it seems, this might prove to be a very useful device during meetings and lectures/workshops for notes sharing.


#-Link-Snipped-# earlier in January 2010, which describes the stylus as a device for writing on any surface and displaying the written images or text on a display of digital communicating device. The working of this smart-pen is based on accelerometers. The pen activates when picked up or when nib is pressed on paper or whenever user powers on manually. Once activated, sensors track the movements relative to the initial point and then can send data in real-time on the screen of iOS device. There’s an option for user to choose whether to transmit the data in real-time or in predefined regular intervals.

If the stylus is being used on whiteboard in classroom, it require real-time transmission of text on digital displays. The smart-pen could be used with multiple accelerometers to capture the details in three dimensions to produce the accurate digital copy. Several other instances may not need data to be transmitted in realtime, in which cases energy can be saved by modifying settings. User can even save the data in the pen itself as it comes with in-built memory. According to Apple Insider, the possibility of a stylus actually going for manufacturing is quite less considering the huge efforts already involved in the production of multi-touch devices.

Via Apple patents smart pen for capturing digital copies of handwritten notes | AppleInsider