As the saying goes, the pen is mightier than the sword. But I’d also venture that the pen can be mightier than the keyboard. After spending hours each day typing out emails, text messages, tweets, Facebook comments and instant messages using similarly dull fonts, the sight of anything written in another person’s handwriting can be quaintly touching.
The Targus iNotebook consists of a notebook case, a customized pen and a paper notebook. A sensor bar above the pad receives signals from the pen as it is used and can wirelessly beam what is written to the iPad.
For the past week, I’ve tried using a tool from Targus that breathes digital life into good old handwriting. It’s the iNotebook, a $ 180 gadget that digitizes and saves words written on regular paper to the iPad.
Using a free, iPad-only app called iNotebook, people can sort their handwritten notes into various notebooks, tabs and pages. They can enhance their notes with cool background images, highlighted text, stamps and different text colors. Audio recordings can be added to notes, and notes can be saved to Dropbox or emailed to friends.
While the iNotebook is definitely a niche product, it’s fun to use and more satisfying than writing on a glass tablet surface using a stylus. People who primarily rely on handwritten notes — whether because they can write faster or because they like making quick annotations or drawings with their notes — will want to consider this device.
But its $ 180 price tag, which is over half the cost of the iPad Mini, will scare buyers off. And in a few instances, the iNotebook pen was a little flaky.
The iNotebook consists of a handsome notebook case, which is available in all black or white canvas with black accents. Inside, a customized pen and a 100-page notebook with lined pages and a black cover slide into the case. (Targus’s notebook refills cost $ 5, but other similarly sized notebooks would also fit.) A special sensor bar runs horizontally above the notebook; it receives signals from the pen as it writes, and communicates wirelessly with the iPad when it’s connected via Bluetooth.
Targus isn’t the first company to try moving handwriting into the land of digital. Back in 1998, IBM attempted to bridge the gap between PC and paper with its CrossPad, which used a pen with a radio frequency transmitter and required a serial cable to connect to a PC. Microsoft incorporated handwriting recognition software into its tablet PCs in the early 2000s. And Livescribe has tried since 2007 to popularize its technology, which uses a pen with a tiny, built-in camera and special paper to record and wirelessly transmit text as you write.
The iNotebook sensor and pen both run on rechargeable batteries that can be charged by plugging into a USB port, and an included split USB cord simultaneously charges the pen and sensor. Both last, fully charged, for 60 days on standby, according to Targus. The sensor automatically turns off after an hour if it hasn’t been used for writing. In use, the sensor is estimated to last 15 hours while not paired via Bluetooth to the iPad, or six hours when it is paired. The pen lasts for 10 hours of writing.
The pen comes with three standard D1 ink refills. A refill pack of 10 from Targus costs $ 8. The cap of this pen doubles as a stylus tip, giving users the option to write with ink on paper in the iNotebook device and then quickly switch over to writing with a stylus in the app.
Any paper can be used with the iNotebook — even a cocktail napkin — so long as the iNotebook pen is used for writing and the paper (or napkin) is placed on the iNotebook. Choosing one’s own paper will be a boon for those who love their Moleskine notebooks and personalized journals because anything they write there can be sent back to the iNotebook iPad app. Indeed, I made a reminder note to myself on a Post-it Note stuck to a page in the iNotebook, and its text was saved in the iPad app.
The way the iNotebook works is a little complicated. Its special pen and sensor work together using infrared and ultrasonic signals that capture text as it’s written; they don’t use handwriting recognition. The pen works as a transmitter: When you press down to write, a switch inside the pen turns it on. The pen transmits the text data to the iNotebook sensor. This text can be instantly displayed on the iPad screen as you’re writing, which feels kind of magical.
If the iPad isn’t nearby or isn’t connected via Bluetooth, up to 100 pages of writing can be stored on the sensor by pressing a small button on the sensor. When the iPad is nearby and/or Bluetooth is on, saved pages are imported from the sensor to the iPad app by tapping an option in the app.
I liked the free iNotebook iPad app, finding it simple to use and self-explanatory. I created five different notebooks, which were each automatically given a different color cover and placed on virtual shelves, the same way magazines and newspapers appear in Apple’s Newsstand app. In the app, I added pages to a notebook by tapping the “+” icon in the bottom right of the app; on the iNotebook, I turned the page in my physical paper notebook or tapped a Next Page button on the sensor to flip to a fresh virtual page.
The iNotebook requires paper to be positioned just below its sensor. At times, when I wrote too close to the left side of my notebook page, the handwriting didn’t come through or appeared as haphazard lines that didn’t make sense. When I adjusted the notebook and moved it farther over into its elastic strap holders, my handwriting was accurately captured.
Targus’s iNotebook isn’t for everyone and its cost will keep away many curious consumers. But it’s simple to use, once you get the hang of it, and its iPad app eases the process of organizing handwritten notes.
Write to Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com.
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There’s no doubt that Barnes & Noble in love with the paper-like interface of the Nook HD+. Not all of its new owners are quite so taken with the retro chic, with the proof being XDA-Developers member verygreen’s early root for the Android tablet (and possibly its HD cousin). The preliminary code is enough to offer a glimpse of a more digital interface as well as teasers of a CyanogenMod port and booting from SD cards. Before racing to use the instructions at the source, be aware that the root’s usefulness may vary wildly in the near future — as of this writing, a familiar defense mechanism dating back to the Nook Color has kicked in that rejects the root and restores itself to factory stock after eight failed boot attempts. That there’s a root at all will nonetheless be a comfort in the long run to those who like the idea of a budget tablet without the enforced nostalgia for dead trees.
Continue reading Barnes & Noble Nook HD+ tenatively rooted for the paper UI-phobic (video)
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This is a Teaser Trailer of our new game Paper Run. Soon To Be Released On *iPad *iPhone/iPod *Pc *Html BjAndTheKatzStudios.com
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Now make Harley Quinn pole-dancing on a toilet brush.
This is a custom Batman toilet paper holder made by Redditor conrick. He stands 31-inches tall and only dispenses the good stuff. None of that newsprint toilet paper you can still read the headlines on. I dunno though, I still think it’s kind of degrading. There’s got to be a better way to honor Gotham’s greatest superhero than letting him know what your ass smells like.
Thanks to my buddy Terry, who told me his toilet paper actually catches fire on the regular. You disgust me.
This is a Mario themed stop-motion animation made from 7,000 Post-It’s and a ton of free time that could have been used doing anything else. If it were me? Sleeping. Probably in a running shower. “That’s dangerous.” THAT’S HOW I LIVE MY LIFE. But seriously: please don’t tell my mom, she worries about me enough.
Hit the jump for the video.
This is a Mario themed stop-motion animation made from 7,000 Post-It’s and a ton of free time that could have been used doing anything else. If it were me? Sleeping. Probably in a running shower. “That’s dangerous.” THAT’S HOW I LIVE MY LIFE. But seriously: please don’t tell my mom, she worries about me enough.
Hit the jump for the video.
Paper Passion is an actual $ 98 perfume that smells like books. I’m not sure if it makes you smell like new books, old books, or books with boogers between the pages, but who cares, I’d rather smell like any of those than AXE body-spray. I’m an Old Spice guy. “Jesus, how old are you?” Over 400 in wizard years!
Hit the jump for a couple more shots of the packaging (it comes in a hollowed book!), but sorry, no smells.
So here is my review of the Bamboo Paper Stylus from Wacom Supplied by – j.mp Free Netflix Trial (UK) – j.mp Free Netflix Trial (USA) – j.mp Check out Amazon vis Sam’s Tech! – j.mp Support Sam’s Tech and Please Visit – j.mp My Website – www.samjpullen.com Twitter – http Facebook – www.facebook.com G+ – gplus.to My 2nd Channel – www.youtube.com New Channel Soon! – www.youtube.com Want me to review your product ? – contact @ samjpullen.com Bamboo Paper Stylus Review samjpullen samstech Bamboo Paper Stylus Review wacom android ios mobile phone tablet computer “tablet stylus” Elago Stylus ipad iPad apple samsung galaxy s2 demo review unboxing un boxing full review demo “draw something stylus” ipod touch screen
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This is a video of somebody trolling a lil spider by drawing a line wherever he wants to go, causing him to turn turn around and try another route. I’m not sure if it’s the smell of fresh ink or the line itself that freaks the little guy out, but by the end he just says ‘SCREW IT ALL!’ and marches across all the lines. That’s right — he learned. And now future generations of spiders won’t be afraid of lines anymore. *smacking Youtube uploader* WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!
Hit the jump for the killer soundtrack.
From the Holoflector virtual mirror to the Illumishare, Microsoft Research never fails to impress us with new product concepts. One area of focus that the group has been working on is home automation, with additional details about its HomeOS project coming to light in a recently-posted paper. While the HomeOS name itself isn’t new — as CNET points out, the name surfaced back in 2010 — the paper notes that Microsoft has had the platform running in 12 different homes over the last four to eight months. The idea is to move away from a series of single devices that may or not be connected in favor of a desktop computer metaphor, where “all devices in the home appear as peripherals connected to a single logical PC.” To handle the issue of…
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