Jeni's Musings

Jeni (hello, daughter!), I really think you should have linked to your previous post where you practically begged for a flypentop.

In my view, the “most annoying thing” about the flypentop is the lack of a decent output mode or device. Apart from the writing (which is really just a record of your input), there seems to be only the audio, loudspeaker or earphones. So for example with the calculator, a result is read out loud - precluding all sorts of things like remembering past results (my memory…) or pipelining(!), feeding previous results to subsequent calculations. I know that other versions of the Anoto pen have a small built-in lcd screen, but this is hardly sufficient. Ironically, released on Jeni’s birthday, there is an “adult” version of the flypentop, the livescribe.

(Oh, I do love the subtleties of language - consider the semantic significance of the comma after the word “Ironically”.)

See also more comments which seem to imply that for the livescribe the writing, at least, can in some way be transferred to a PC.

Perhaps we might hope in future for a wireless (bluetooth-like, PAN) link to a flexible display, especially one that gave a window onto the acres\Whectares\Wmillion-sq-km of distinct Anoto patterns.

Still AFAIK no sign online of any hints on hacking the flypentop.

Barry