|
Sponsored Links
Resources
Enterprise Java
Research Library
Get Java white papers, product information, case studies and webcasts
|
News
News
News
|
Messages: 12
Messages: 12
Messages: 12
Printer friendly
Printer friendly
Printer friendly
Post reply
Post reply
Post reply
XML
XML
XML
|
 |
The Killer Device of JavaOne 2008
JavaOne has always been known for using the technology - every attendee has a badge that runs Java, for example, for very simple data retrieval. (At least, that's what I've heard.) This year, the killer device looks like the LiveScribe pen, easily, with lines this morning that stretched out almost into the street to buy one.
The LiveScribe is a pen that records what you write in special notebooks (which are provided with the pen, and for which you can print your own pages.) You then transfer the written material to your desktop with a custom application.
You can also record audio while you write, so you can get both the audio and the written text, synchronized; the text recognition is excellent, even translating my horrible handwriting into the correct written English.
It's a very nice pen, very heavy but well-balanced. It comes with nibs for writing (obviously, as it is a pen) and with a nib that doesn't write (so you could use the applications without scribbling on a page.)
I haven't had a chance to play with the custom development kit, but I have ideas, of course. What I'd like to ask is: what ideas do you have? The enterprise is no longer made of just a desktop machine, a server machine, and a laptop, all connected by the web; devices like this can serve as enterprise devices, too. What can you think of that you'd like to see things like this be able to do?
|
|
|
Message #252221
Post reply
Post reply
Post reply
Go to top
Go to top
Go to top
|
|
Best demo is JavaOne 2008
The pen blow me, and all my collegues, away. I just managed to keep myself from buying it. The special price was only just 135 dollar (if I remebered correctly).
There are a few things I would love to have/make for the pen, mostly just little games to pass the time:
- Sudoku
- Simon Says
- MP3 player (draw the controls and listen to your songs)
|
|
|
Message #252222
Post reply
Post reply
Post reply
Go to top
Go to top
Go to top
|
|
SDK
I see SDK will be available in 2nd half of the year. Was alpha/beta sdk made available at the conference?
To LiveScribe,
I placed and order and looks like your mails are sent to bulk mail on yahoo (something u might want to address).
|
|
|
Message #252239
Post reply
Post reply
Post reply
Go to top
Go to top
Go to top
|
|
Nah, it's a gimmick
It looks cool at first sight, I was thinking of virtual desktop sharing, whiteboards we can record etc. and then when you look into it it only works on their special paper and it's not new.
There were similar but not as full featured pens that came out a few years ago. I think the paper was invented even longer ago, it's a pattern rather like cross between a bar-code and a Penrose tile. It's works because the position of the dots are unique in any position and never repeat, for this reason the pen can work out exactly where it is and no doubt what page it's on. The disadvantage to the user is that is will probably only work on their [probably] rather expensive paper. Technically it would cost peanuts to print yourself with any reasonable printer.
If it comes with a low level SDK allowing the user access to the dot positions and therefore perhaps allow "user printed" paper then it'll be a fun toy, somehow I suspect not.
Add to that the fact that it only works on Windoze and it's easy to see it's designed for the lower end of the market :-)
I love gadgets but this isn't going to be one you'll find in my pocket.
-John-
|
|
|
Message #252240
Post reply
Post reply
Post reply
Go to top
Go to top
Go to top
|
|
Re: Nah, it's a gimmick
I should add that when I saw it, I thought it might be using the accelerometers Apple use in their iPhone, with enough of them, in theory, you should be able to work out the position of the pen tip even if it leaves the paper but I guess that's some way off for now.
Anyone know an algorithm for printing the paper they use, I suspect the dots are too fine to photocopy but a modern printer should manage it.
-John-
|
|
|
Message #252258
Post reply
Post reply
Post reply
Go to top
Go to top
Go to top
|
|
Yes, you CAN print the paper
I heard that the company will be making PDFs of the paper available so that you can print it.
Nonetheless, it's shocking that the UI wasn't written in Java so that the pen could be used by any user. Otherwise, it would be tempting. I could see great value for a student.
The UI seems to do some OCR as it can find text. I wonder if it can do full OCR. That would also be quite useful.
|
|
|
Message #252311
Post reply
Post reply
Post reply
Go to top
Go to top
Go to top
|
|
Re: Nah, it's a gimmick
The paper has been out for at least 8 years. The dot pattern is unique enough, and large enough, that it provides a coordinate system, as I recall, roughly about the size of the continental US, when realized at the resolution used on a standard piece of paper.
The company that owns the dot technology basically gives out "real estate" in the coordinate system to licensees with which they can do with what they will.
The actual paper being sold by the company can be a single coordinate space, or each page could be different. Hard to say.
For many applications, it's unimportant, as they only need relative coordinates.
It's nice to see the pen coming down in size. A year or two ago there was a device called the "Fly Computer" or something like that using the exact same technology, but aimed at the teen market.
To me, the best application I can come up with, particularly today, is a crossover application of using the Pen to fill out paper forms, and then simply loading the form from the pen.
The market is basically to older folks unfamiliar, or simply uncomfortable, with technology. They can use the Pen to fill out questionnaires, medical surveys, etc. using something they're familiar with (i.e. Pen and paper), while the organization collecting the data get the efficiencies of automation.
It's a bit of a fringe market, however, especially today.
But imaging have, say, business cards with the pattern. You could make simple "notes" (like phone numbers, etc.) from contact in the field on the back of these small pieces of paper, and later load the data up in to a Contact Management System. Meanwhile, you're just carrying around a pen.
If the company is allowing folks to print paper (and modern printers can print the pattern just fine), that's a great sign for ISVs being able to create interesting applications. Just lay out pre-printed forms on top of the coordinate space.
|
|
|
Message #252338
Post reply
Post reply
Post reply
Go to top
Go to top
Go to top
|
|
Re: Nah, it's a gimmick
The disadvantage to the user is that is will probably only work on their [probably] rather expensive paper.
Their salespeople told several dozen people that they would soon make it possible to print your own paper with the caveat that you'd need a laser printer.
If it comes with a low level SDK allowing the user access to the dot positions and therefore perhaps allow "user printed" paper then it'll be a fun toy, somehow I suspect not.
Their salespeople and website suggest that it will. It appears that their model includes allowing developers to sell their programs through them.
|
|
|
Message #252398
Post reply
Post reply
Post reply
Go to top
Go to top
Go to top
|
|
Logitech Digital Pen
Logitech had a Digital Pen that wrote on special paper also. It always seemed fascinating and I was thiniking about buying one, but they are now selling that product to Destiny Wireless plc, based in the U.K. Here is a link for information.
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/67/3045
Has anybody used the Logitech pen? How does it compare?
|
|
|
Message #252423
Post reply
Post reply
Post reply
Go to top
Go to top
Go to top
|
|
The company is called Anoto
As I work at the company that invented the pen and the paper, I had to make a comment. The company is called Anoto (www.anoto.com), and most of your comments above are true. Each paper has a unique pattern, and the total size of this pattern is the size of Europe and Asia together. But you can also reuse areas, which is usually the case for applications like notebooks.
I don't know exactly how it works for Livescribe, but there are applications where you can print out your own paper with the pattern on. But have a look a our website, where you will find more about the technology.
Cheers,
Per
|
|
|
Message #252469
Post reply
Post reply
Post reply
Go to top
Go to top
Go to top
|
|
Re: The company is called Anoto
Thanks Per, I looked into your company when I saw the first pen announce for pharmaceutical use I think it was. Does Anoto actually hold the patent on the concept behind the paper or just the implementation. I thought it was very similar to Penrose tiles which are of course infinite in size. I just assumes the resolution of the dots limited the practical size in this instance to Europe+Asia as your web site says, pretty clever anyway.
Regards,
-John-
|
|
|
| New content on TheServerSide.comNew content on TheServerSide.comNew content on TheServerSide.com |
|
|
Reza Rahman explores the features of the proposed JSR 299, Contexts and Dependency Injection for Java EE (CDI). When approved, it promises to be a key feature of Java EE 6.
(November 2, Article)
SAML is an XML-based standard for exchanging authentication and authorization data between security domains. The single most important problem that SAML was created to solve is the Web browser Single Sign-On problem. Many organizations are debating whether to stay with version 1.1 or move to 2.0. This article makes observations about both options.
(September 28, Article)
Joe Ottinger takes a look at how people learn, and applies it to the practice of programming. He notes that understanding how people learn is an essential part of working in a programming team.
(September 22, Article)
Stephen Maryka gave us an article about the Asynchronous Web and posed a number of questions that get examined like an approach to delivering Asynchronous Web capabilities through extensions to existing Java EE technologies.
(July 14, Article)
JavaServer Faces Flex goal is to provide users capability in creating standard Flex components, part of flexSDK which is open sourced through MPL license, as normal JSF components. This article by Ji Hoon Kim will provide an overview of creating a simple multilingual JSF page consisting of JSF Flex tags.
(June 29, Article)
In this session Jeff explores the key characteristics of successful SOA projects. He covers some of the patterns, and anti-patterns, tool sets, and strategies that he himself learned the hard way. Last, he provides a strategy and blueprint for achieving a high likelihood of success in your SOA project.
(June 23, Tech Talk)
Ari Zilka, CTO of Terracotta, Inc., talks about the new features in Terracotta 3.1, announced during JavaOne and available now.
(June 15, Tech Talk)
In this Tech Talk, Josh Long explores an integration challenge using Spring Integration and walks through the implementation, employing and expanding on the basic patterns of Enterprise Application Integration to tie together components into a function integration solution, and then demonstrates how Spring Integration helps address the integration requirements.
(June 15, Tech Talk)
In this Tech Talk, David Geary teaches you: The basics of Google Web Toolkit; How to implement Ajax-enabled applications in Java; Internationalization; Hooking into the browser history mechanism; Remote procedure calls.
(June 4, Tech Talk)
Jon Kern discusses the best architecture/technical solutions and ensure that they are repeated by all developers. By tackling the architecture up-front in a serial manner, subsequent parallel development will be much more manageable and predictable.
(May 28, Tech Talk)
This keynote describes the frustrations of modern knowledge workers in their quest to actually get some work done, and solutions for how to guard yourself against all those distractions. Neal Ford talks about environments, coding, acceleration, automation, and avoiding repetition as ways to defeat the misguided attempts to sap your ability to produce good work.
(May 26, Tech Talk)
Gil demonstrates how new, aggressive uses of already abundant compute capacity by common applications offer competitive value for application designers.
(May 21, Tech Talk)
Chris Keene introduces WaveMaker as a new way to automate the ability to generate Hibernate classes in order to more quickly bring OR mapping into an application.
(May 19, Article)
In this session Nati Shalom demonstrates how to take a standard Java EE web application and scale it out or down dynamically without changes to the application code. Seeing as most web applications are over-provisioned to meet infrequent peak loads, this is a dramatic change because it enables growing your application as needed, when needed, without paying for unutilized resources.
(May 19, Tech Talk)
Mastering EJB was one of the original and most influential EJB books in the industry. Mastering EJB III now returns with two new expert co-authors, updated for EJB 2.1 and 30% new chapters including security, integration, best practices, open source, and more.
(Book PDF Download)
The Application Server Matrix is a detailed listing of J2EE vendors and their application server products, with information on latest version numbers, J2EE spec support and licensing, pricing, platform support, and links to product downloads and reviews.
(Application Server Comparison Matrix)
|
|
