Digital Writing

Now this is cool - a pen that turns handwritten notes into digital text, files and images. Logitech's Digital Writing System.

The New York Times calls it A Pen That's More Than Meets the Paper

But recently Mr. Hultin made a small, effective change in his note-taking life: he bought a digital pen. The device looks like a slightly plump ballpoint, and works like any ballpoint. But inside this gadget are a tiny camera and an optical sensor that record the pen's motions as he writes, and a microprocessor that digitizes the words, sketches and diagrams that the optics detect.

When he docks the pen in its cradle connected to a USB port, the handwritten notes flow in a digitized stream into his computer and are processed by software, reappearing almost immediately on his monitor in his handwriting. "All the notes I've written are sucked into the computer, and there they are on the screen," he said.

His pen, called io2, is sold by Logitech of Fremont, Calif., for about $200.