Apple just got another patent granted by the USPTO, this time for a smart pen that can be used to write on a surface and have the handwritten words directly recognized and displayed on a digital device. The pen is basically a stylus, but one thing that stands out is that it can be used to write on any surface.
The USPTO patent calls it a “Communicating Stylus”, with the following description.
A stylus for writing on any type of surface, such as a piece of paper or a whiteboard and subsequently displaying the written images or text on a display of a digital computing device. The stylus may likewise be moved in three-dimensional space and corresponding images displayed on a display of a computing device.
How does it work?
The Apple smart pen patent says that the “stylus tracks its different positions while a user is writing or drawing and then either stores the data to be uploaded later or transmits the data simultaneously to a computing device.”
This ‘computing device’ serves as the screen for what is written or drawn. Additionally, the device can be in any position or location. What matters is that it has a way to communicate with the pen. Presumably, the ‘computing device’ will be any of the Macs, MacBooks, and iOS devices.
The patent was file in 2010, with Aleksandar Pance of Saratoga, CA named as the patent owner.
Other granted patents:
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