HP, Nokia mobilize digital pen technology

The pen can digitally record what a user writes

By Stephen Lawson

February 2, 2005 12:00 PM ET

IDG News Service - Hewlett-Packard Co.'s "digital pen" technology is going mobile -- with a little help from Nokia Corp.
The digital pen is a real ink pen that takes 100 pictures per second to digitally record what the user is writing. A new model from Nokia can send that information via Bluetooth to a Nokia phone and from there to a server over a standard mobile data network, the companies said today.
HP and Nokia teamed up to add more mobility to a system that was designed to quickly and efficiently transfer information from paper forms to databases, according to Eric Chaniot, vice president and general manager of HP's digital pen and paper business. HP's current digital pen uses a cradle wired to a PC via USB. Users have to put the pen in the cradle in order to upload data.
The key markets for digital forms are health care, manufacturing, financial services and government, where transferring information from paper forms to computers typically costs about $1 per page and causes delays in work processes, Chaniot said. Digital pen technology takes that cost down to about 25 cents per page, according to HP.
By going mobile, the companies hope to make digital forms useful in many new settings, Chaniot said. For example, nurses and doctors making rounds, as well as claims adjusters and building inspectors in the field, will be able to send information back to a database as soon as it is entered on a paper form.
The system is built around a server application called the HP Service Controller and includes HP LaserJet printers that can print digital forms, as well as software for transforming an enterprise's existing paper forms into digital ones. A user can fill out the paper form and then send all the information on it to the Service Controller from any remote location served by a GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) mobile data service.
Every part of the system is built around a grid. The HP printers can print a background grid on each individual form, in regular black ink, to map the location of every element of the form. The Service Controller understands that grid and uses it to make sense of the data it gets from the pen.
In addition, each copy of each paper form has a unique identity, defined by its position on a virtual grid of all the forms printed out by that enterprise. That grid, in turn, is part of a massive virtual grid of all forms printed out using the Mobile

Reprinted with permission from

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