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Seiko SmartPad: Getting it all down

December 6, 2000
Web posted at: 4:30 p.m. EST (2130 GMT)

With Ed Curran, Technogadgets

(CNN) -- Getting your words into print is easier than ever. Today's technology takes writing and information management to a whole new level.

You can write with a stylus on your Palm organizer and have it instantly change to text. It knows what you’re writing. You can speak to your computer and a program like Dragon’s Naturally Speaking will magically change your voice into print.

But with all these technological advancements, some people still like paper. That's OK. Some people still like manual typewriters.

For those who can't get away from the yellow legal pads.

For those people who need the weight of huge pads of paper in their briefcase.

For those people who yearn to bring just one more forest to its knees ... we have a high-tech pairing for your paper.

Imagine a little leather portfolio. Unzip it and open it flat in front of you. On the right is your 5-by-8-inch ruled pad of paper. We call it a small legal pad. On the left is your Palm organizer. You have the best of both worlds in front of you.

QUICK VOTE
	Is "digital ink" something you can use in your work? Not yet. Pen and paper still work for me. Unsure. In some ways, a SmartPad might be more hassle than it's worth, but I'm interested. I'm ready for one and jotting down notes on this thing right now. The ink is running and the quill keeps tickling my nose. View Results

Now, here's the techno-part: When you write on the paper it instantly appears on your Palm! Words, drawings, everything appears as though a tiny video camera were capturing your every stroke.

The Seiko SmartPad sells for about $200 and is a great way to have your Palm, and paper too. Your words appear as you wrote them, and you can zoom into them on the Palm, but they won't change into printed text. So write neatly.

The SmartPad reminds me of the CrossPad that came out a couple of years ago. It captured everything you wrote on your yellow legal pad and stored it in sort of an electronic clipboard. Your notes could then be loaded into your computer. The CrossPad is no longer available but look for a new version of the device to come out soon.

Perhaps the neatest thing we’ve seen lately was being shown on the floor of the COMDEX computer show. It was a pen that could be linked to a wireless phone by using the new Bluetooth radio technology.

The pen, writing on a sheet of specially encoded paper, would send a signal to the phone that could then transmit your writing onto any computer anywhere in the world.

SMARTCURRAN
	Technogadgets' Ed Curran talks about both the Kyocera SmartPhone and the Seiko SmartPad on CNN. SmartClick here. (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)

The signal could also be transmitted to any nearby Bluetooth-capable computer that would store what was being written. You could sit at your desk in the office and have your wireless pen send all your doodles right to your computer. The doodles could then be e-mailed, by mistake, to the CEO of the company you work for. Or used to work for.

So, don't throw that paper away. There's a future in paper, at least until we get "digital ink" perfected. Then your paper will become totally updatable.

Your newspaper made of a special electronic paper will never be thrown out. Its flexible pages will instead update automatically.

Your daily newspaper will be delivered, on time, right to your Internet doorstep.

Ed Curran has covered the world of high-tech for more than a dozen years and is the publisher of Technogadgets® -- www.technogadgets.com In addition to his weekly column here at CNN.com/career, watch for Curran's reports on CNN television.

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Anoto
Cross Pen Computing Group
SmartPad

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