Long available for the PC in the form of the Logitech IO Digital Pen, Pen-it Notes brings the functionality over to the mac-side, with a few tweaks.
The Pen-It Notes Bluetooth Digital Pen, from Hitachi Maxwell, and the Logitech io Digital Pen, allow you to have your handwritten work and drawing or sketches, available in digital form on your computer, by recording your handwritten strokes (via a tiny internal camera), and later syncing it with the computer, where it can be stored and later edited.
The Pen-It syncs to your Mac via Bluetooth and the Logitech io via its USB charger/docking cradle.
The pens work only with a special paper, which is formatted with invisible dots that transforms your handwriting into vector data (which is how the computer is able to store your data). No word yet on compatibility with the Logitech io or whether or not the Pen-It supports OS X's Inkwell technology, though Logitech’s variant, comes with its own handwriting recognition software, and offers handwriting to text conversion.
Pricing of the Pen-It starts at $199 thanks to a $100 off promotion running at Macworld. The Logitech io costs $149 and $12 for 3-128 page notebooks of their special paper. The cost of the Pen-It paper should hopefully be similarly priced.
Though a seemingly useful technology, it lends to questions about the accessibility and availability of the special writing paper and special ink cartridges. Something to think about.
[TUAW]
