4 ms·

It looks well executed (particularly the new layer feature) but what's new about this device? These digital pens have existed for years.

camtarn 15y ago
I hadn't realized quite how many of the special-paper-free digital pens were out there now - last time I'd looked, the pens needed special paper and used a pen-tip camera for sensing (basically a special-purpose optical mouse). Here's a collection of them: http://digital-pen-review.toptenreviews.com/ http://digital-pen-review.toptenreviews.com/ Interestingly, the last three pens in the comparison table all do look very similar to Wacom's offering. I wonder whether the Wacom pen is using the same technology (or is maybe even made by the same manufacturer behind the scenes?) In any case, I reckon the Wacom name will help them sell, possibly helping promote them to artists wanting to sketch on the move rather than (as the linked comparison mentions) for business purposes.
- hopeless 15y ago
  I was obviously just as ignorant about these newer digital pens!
- zupatol 15y ago
  My guess is wacom managed to improve the quality enough to make it usable for artists. The other pens seem to be mainly useful for ocr, and are marketed as tools for taking notes. The automatic vectorization of the drawings is also nice.
  - camtarn 15y ago
    Very possibly... this article mentions that it has 1024-level pressure sensitivity, which really makes a big difference for artistic work: http://recombu.com/news/wacom-inkling-digital-pen-launches_M15018.html http://recombu.com/news/wacom-inkling-digital-pen-launches_M... It also mentions the UK launch date and price: October 2011, at £149.99.
hopeless 15y ago
Most of those digital pens used specially printed paper which had machine-readable dot patterns. This looks like it takes a different approach compatible with any paper/notebook. Sounds like a great toy for those people who like to sketch notes in meetings etc. I wonder if it can replay the drawing as an animation?
- ricardobeat 15y ago
  No they didn't. See this list: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2626833 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2626833

camtarn 15y ago

I hadn't realized quite how many of the special-paper-free digital pens were out there now - last time I'd looked, the pens needed special paper and used a pen-tip camera for sensing (basically a special-purpose optical mouse). Here's a collection of them: http://digital-pen-review.toptenreviews.com/ http://digital-pen-review.toptenreviews.com/ Interestingly, the last three pens in the comparison table all do look very similar to Wacom's offering. I wonder whether the Wacom pen is using the same technology (or is maybe even made by the same manufacturer behind the scenes?) In any case, I reckon the Wacom name will help them sell, possibly helping promote them to artists wanting to sketch on the move rather than (as the linked comparison mentions) for business purposes.

hopeless 15y ago
I was obviously just as ignorant about these newer digital pens!
zupatol 15y ago
My guess is wacom managed to improve the quality enough to make it usable for artists. The other pens seem to be mainly useful for ocr, and are marketed as tools for taking notes. The automatic vectorization of the drawings is also nice.
- camtarn 15y ago
  Very possibly... this article mentions that it has 1024-level pressure sensitivity, which really makes a big difference for artistic work: http://recombu.com/news/wacom-inkling-digital-pen-launches_M15018.html http://recombu.com/news/wacom-inkling-digital-pen-launches_M... It also mentions the UK launch date and price: October 2011, at £149.99.

hopeless 15y ago

Most of those digital pens used specially printed paper which had machine-readable dot patterns. This looks like it takes a different approach compatible with any paper/notebook. Sounds like a great toy for those people who like to sketch notes in meetings etc. I wonder if it can replay the drawing as an animation?

ricardobeat 15y ago
No they didn't. See this list: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2626833 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2626833