6 Mar 2007
Tags:notrant technology
If you’re like me and have been holding your breath for the Epos Pens to see the light of day, you can exhale now. While it seems they are still not available for purchase there are some reviews of the devices surfacing that may just quell some of the curiosity you may have.
There are two different pens that will be available, the first being the Wireless Digital Pen and Mouse. This device has two main functions - to capture handwriting from paper as it is being written and to function as a point-and-click device (like a mouse). Of the two pens, this is the one I have been waiting to see in the hopes that it will offer a higher level of control over a mouse or trackball for use with Photoshop and Illustrator thus eliminating the need to carry around my Intuos tablet while traveling. It would also be a bonus if this pen worked in conjunction with Elluminate Live (the original reason why Chris brought this pen to my attention in the first place). The outlook is grim for all of my hopes based on this review of the pen. It doesn’t seem to provide much accuracy at all.
The second pen Epos has is the Digital Pen & USB Flash Drive. You may notice that there is no mention of the word “mouse” in the name of this pen. This pen functions strictly as a mechanism for capturing handwriting and the flash memory device records your pen strokes as you write. Though the demo video on the Epos web site says you can store up to 1000 pages of handwriting I’m just not the type of person to hand-write such a copious amount of text. Maybe a poet would find this device more useful than I. ZDNet has a review of this device.
Based on the reviews linked above I really don’t have such high expectations for these products as I originally had, but will probably still give them a try and hope that Epos refines the technology for future applications.
