Smart pen could copy your handwriting onto an iPad

At the end of 2014 the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted Apple a patent for a communicating stylus that’s able to capture digital copies of handwritten notes and drawings from paper to a computing device.

How could this work? Accelerometer sensors, device storage, and wireless transmission will be responsible for transferring your handwriting to a digital display through the stylus. So in theory, the pen will allow you to write on a notepad and then view your work on a device such as an iPad.

But this isn’t anything new — similar smart pens already exist. For example, the LiveScribe 3 can digitally capture written notes as long as users write on a special kind of paper. But thanks to 3D motion sensors, the Apple stylus could work on any surface. If someone were to write on the wall or even in the air, the words could be transferred to a digital device. Better yet, the modern stylus will also have the ability to enter data into a device from a distance, such as when the user is at the other end of a room.

In its abstract, Apple describes the patent as this:

“The stylus may likewise be moved in three-dimensional space and corresponding images displayed on a display of a computing device. 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. The computing device then displays the images and text drawn on the surface.”

Only the future will tell whether Apple will pursue making the device publicly available, as the company has already filed a number of patents that we have yet to see.