The power of the pen

he time-tested combination of pen and paper may be decidedly low-tech, but it offers several advantages over more high-tech means of note-taking. Not only is this traditional method inexpensive, but also it requires no electrical cords or batteries. In fact, modern technology has offered few alternatives that could compete with the simplicity, convenience and portability of a pen and a pad of paper.

Notebooks and personal digital assistants, which allow users to tap notes into their computers, have made inroads; they are trendy and portable. But none of these technologies is as simple as pen and paper. So, IBM Corp. has decided, "If you can't beat 'em join 'em." IBM is hoping to change the look of conference rooms the world over by incorporating the basics of pen and paper into its newest digital notebook design, the IBM ThinkPad TransNote.

The TransNote, which will sell for $3,000 when it hits the street this month, could become a handy tool for federal executives in meetings. They are required to keep their notes when discussing official government business, says Michael Miller, director of modern records at the National Archives and Records Administration. Miller says federal employees could benefit from technology that helps them manage their note-taking, especially considering some types of data must be kept longer than others.

The TransNote, which comes in right-handed and left-handed versions, is about the size of a common portfolio and holds a standard 8.5-by-11 pad of paper. It incorporates the ThinkScribe, which digitally captures notes written in ink on a paper pad. A digitizer grid lies under the pad, picks up motions from a special pen and sends digital signals of a user's handwriting to the electronic notebook. The technology emulates the old-fashioned pen and paper.

"There are many positive attributes for paper on the front end," says Tom Grimes, a segment manager for IBM's Mobile Systems Division. But, he adds, the downside is the difficulty in retrieving notes many months later. "The ThinkScribe actually captures what you write," he says. "The pages of notes and drawings are then automatically downloaded to the notebook side."

High-tech tablets have been available before now, but the technology never caught on with users. A.T. Cross Co. introduced the CrossPad in 1998, which was essentially the ThinkScribe portion of the TransNote. But the company ceased production because the CrossPad was unwieldy for users. The device had to be hooked up to a computer in order to download the digitized text. IBM learned from the CrossPad's shortcomings, Grimes says, and developed the TransNote so that "everything happens under the covers." The TransNote's hallmark is utility. It features a 10.4-inch touch screen that users can tilt to their preferences or even swivel to face other viewers. This cuts down on the awkwardness of giving small, notebook-based presentations. The screen also can be folded flat over the keyboard, for displaying in tight spaces. The TransNote is just one and one-third inches thick and weighs less than 5.5 pounds-including pen and paper. The notebook portion can operate for 2.5 hours on a lithium ion battery, and the ThinkScribe batteries can last for a week.

The TransNote may be light, but it doesn't sacrifice power. It speeds along at 600 MHz with an Intel Mobile Pentium III processor. The base model includes a 10G hard drive and 64M of RAM, which can be upgraded to 256M. IBM includes Ethernet connectivity and a 56K modem with the TransNote, although users can choose wireless networking. The TransNote has two universal serial bus ports and a PC card slot for connectivity. It also has a CompactFlash slot for removable storage media such as IBM MicroDrive miniature hard drives (Personal Technology, May 2000).

The TransNote stops short of translating handwritten notes into computer-generated text. The unit captures images of notes and allows users to search their text through keyword recognition. But handwriting recognition is still not foolproof enough for the common user, Grimes says. "These days handwriting recognition technology gets 80 to 85 percent results," he says. "That means users have to go in and do a lot of editing." But the technology is expected to improve in the next few years, Grimes says, and make the TransNote even more useful.