Review: digital writing with PaperShow

The keyboard is a really lousy input device for a PC. It is after all based on a 200-year old concept that has changed very little and is a wholly unnatural way of interacting. I feel much the same way about Powerpoint.

PaperShow has had a much better idea. It has taken a technology – the pen and pencil – that we’re all familiar with and use from age 18-months and created an interface that enables you to use a pen and pad of paper as an input device with images and writing on a pad of paper transferred instantly to a PC screen or whiteboard.

That in itself is really neat. But where it becomes really powerful is when you’re presenting or reviewing a document in a meeting. It’s incredibly natural and hugely democratising to hand round a pen in a meeting and make mark-ups that instantly appear on screen or a white board.

The PaperShow solution is so elegant that you wonder why the hell no one has tried to do it before. It was my immediate reaction after being sent one to review. Priced at £140 and set to launch later this year I reckon every meeting room should be equipped with at least a couple.

The technology itself is fairly complex: the pen has an embedded optical device that relays movement to the PC via a Bluetooth radio. It must be packed with stacks of processing powerful. Oh, and it writes on paper as well.

Drew Benvie has also had a look at this kit.

Also posted on www.rainierpr.co.uk