Logitech's magic pen and paper

We couldn't wait to get our hands on the Logitech IO2 Digital Writing System -- which really is a magic pen.

The fat grey and black writing instrument is as light as a feather and has two little green LEDs on it, because it's magic. You open the Oxford Digital Pages Easybook, which looks totally ordinary even though it's a magic book, and on it you draw a picture of a house, say, with smoke coming out of the chimney and little fluffy clouds flying over the top. The writing looks like an ordinary blue biro. Then you pop the magic pen in the magic pen holder, which is connected via USB to your PC, and say 'abracadabra' (but that's just for atmosphere).

Suddenly some Logitech software you've already loaded up kicks in and on your PC is the very same picture of the very same house, with smoke coming out of the chimney and little fluffy clouds flying over the top, and then you email this magic picture to your friends and get to say, "How cool is that?"

Crave was incredibly impressed by the ease and simplicity with which the magic pen worked, but after five minutes none of us could think of anything practical we could use it for, which is a terrible shame. We'd give it to the art department, but they don't get out of bed unless it's Mac and sadly the magic pen only works for PC users.

There's some handwriting recognition software which takes an hour to train, but we didn't have the patience: we liked the way some bland test writing turned into ominious remarks about "imminent layoffs".

It's one of those devices which will change the lives of a very small number of people. Here's a checklist to see if the magic pen will do it for you:

· Do you use a PC?

· Do you draw a lot with a biro?

· Do you produce a large amount of drawings, in a consistent style, which need to be digitally archived or sent via email?

· Do you have neat hand writing and the patience required to get the most out the typically tempramental handwriting-to-text conversion software?

· Do other people you work with actually want to see electronic versions of your scribbles?

·Are you a reclusive cartoonist who works best with a ball-point pen and who wants to send spare little pen and ink drawings via email?

If the answer to all these is yes (okay, maybe not the last one), then you need the Logitech IO2 Digital Writing System, because it's going to be an invaluable tool for making your life easier. For us, not so much, but then, we got to draw a house with little fluffy clouds using a magic pen and paper, and surely that's what Crave is all about?

If you do become a magic pen user, be warned. The main problem is you can't use ordinary paper, so if you get hooked you'll be buying Logitech compatible magic paper for the rest of your life, and it's much more expensive than the old envelopes we usually scribble stuff on. Can we have a magic pen without magic paper, please?

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• Tags:
• magic,
• drawings,
• house,
• paper