Digiscribble - Answer to My Analogue Prayers?

Today I walked into a well-known PC store with the intention of buying a PDF writer. I left with what I now trust will be the final answer to my analogue prayers - a Digiscribble.

A "mobile, digital notetaker", using a simple memory receiver unit and "PC pen" transmitter, the Digiscribble claims to convert handwritten notes to typed text for direct processing into Windows XP and Vista. It recognises 15 languages and gets to know your handwriting 'quirks'. Intelligent stuff.

The effervescent in-store salesman exalted that even his scribble was legible to the receiver. Good. Because years of childhood schooling in pen poise and neat, cursive writing has been obliterated by incessant keyboard use to the extent that even holding a pen now for more than 10 minutes gives me arthritic-like finger cramps. Any hand-writing analyst could be forgiven for having serious, (and - I must point out - unjustifiable), concerns for my mental wellbeing.

After a visceral journalistic grounding that has taught me never to leave home without notebook and pencil, I am expecting much of its promised "handwriting revolution". I don't always schlep a laptop around and, in fact, often find that I become more inspired by observations and ideas when I'm out of a PC environment.

Like leaving a notepad by the bedside table, ideas often have a Damascus-moment urgency about them and need to be captured there and then, wherever they grab you. This unfortunate urge to scribble last week caused me to spontaneously camp on the floor of WH Smith as if staging a lone protest sit-in against yet more shelf-space being given over to teenage celebrity autobiographies.

If this device can decipher my scrawl that even I find barely legible when faced with the tedious, wasteful task of transcribing it to PC; if it really can detect the 'Umlauts' when I'm penning a note to my wonderful German associate, Uschi, then I shall be proclaiming not only a handwriting revolution, but a veritable miracle!

Joanna Lund Director, Reputation Matters, http://www.reputationmattersltd.com

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