Pen-to-computer device takes pain out of notes

Sick of taking notes in class or meetings? Well, maybe you do not have to anymore, thanks to the Mimio, a portable device that can translate into computer data in real time anything written on an ordinary white-board.

You can see it on the computer screen, e-mail it to anyone, save it on a disk, or print it. Available in Hong Kong by next month, its maker is Virtual Ink, a start-up founded by students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The Mimio is a 24-inch bar with suction disks which can receive infrared signals and ultrasound waves. The markers to be used on the board are put in jackets which emit both infrared and ultrasound.

So when you write or draw on the board, the Mimio knows the position of your pen by calculating the ultrasound signal, and the speed of the moving pen by using the infrared as a timer.

This was called 'position-sense technology', said Greg McHale, president and chief executive of Virtual Ink. The Mimio then sends the data to your computer to be calculated and displayed by the company's software.

'You can also use this as a Mimio Mouse,' Mr McHale said. 'You can turn the white-board into a touch screen when you are doing a presentation with software such as Powerpoint.' The idea came to one of Virtual Ink's founders, Yonald Chery, an MIT professor, when he found his students were distracted by note-taking.