Acecad Digimemo

This is the latest of several products we've seen that attempt to marry the convenience of paper to the power of the PC.

Acecad's Digimemo differs from the most common of these, the various incarnations of the Anoto smart pen, in that it does not need special paper. You can slot in any A5 notepad and it will digitally record anything you write or draw.

The 8MB of memory will store up to a claimed 66 pages, but a Compact Flash slot gives you the option of storing much more for transferring to a PC at your convenience via a USB link.

The device looks much like an ordinary paper clipboard, except that what appears to be a clip at the top is, in fact, the cover for the four AAA batteries.

It comes with what is described as a 'magnetic' pen, which contains a ballpoint pen so you can also write normally. One design fault is that there is no way to attach the pen securely to the pad, virtually ensuring that it will get lost. Replacements cost £15 each.

The thumbnail status screen and four control buttons (up page, down page, next blank and delete page) have to be used with care. You will get into an awful mess if you do not number your 'real' pages in tandem with the digital versions to avoid overwriting material.

The Digimemo comes with a trial version of Vision Objects' Myscript handwriting-recognition utility. This works quite well if you write clearly, but it is not viable as an alternative keyboard.

With the bundled management utility, it is useful for anyone who wishes to file sketches and handwritten notes. There are also potential business and legal uses, such as form filling and witness statements.

See also:

Nokia Digital Writing Solution

An alternative method of inputting text  22 Jul 2005

Logitech io Pen

Convert your handwriting into digital text  24 Jun 2005

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