The Pen
The Digital Pen & Paper technology is enabled through a proprietary pattern which is owned and licensed by Anoto AB.
The digital pen looks and feels just like an ordinary ballpoint pen and you use it in the same way. There are no keys to press and no display. You activate the pen simply by removing the cap.
As the pen is used, a tiny camera in the pen registers the pen’s movement across the grid surface on the paper and stores it as series of map coordinates. These coordinates correspond to the exact location of the page you’re writing on.
The main parts of the digital pen are a digital camera, an advanced image-processing unit and a communication unit. It also contains an ink cartridge so that you can actually see what you have written or drawn.
The Paper
The digital paper is created by printing a proprietary pattern of very small dots on ordinary paper that is perceived by the eye as a slightly off-white color. Your form will then be overprinted by a fine dot pattern.
When you mark the SEND box on the form, the pen will send secure encrypted data by Bluetooth to a mobile phone. Our router installed on the phone will send the packet of data to our server, where it is processed in real time.
When the entry fields are completed and the message written, a mark in the SEND box will trigger the pen to establish contact with your mobile phone over, for instance, a Bluetooth radio link. Alternatively the Digital Pen can be “docked” and the data transferred to a Personal Computer via a USB port.