IRIS has released a new pen.

Oh, big deal, you might be thinking to yourself. Just what the world needs — another pen! But I’m telling you, if you were Maxwell Smart, you’d be mightily interested, because this is no ordinary pen. This is a scanning pen — the kind that you can easily hide in your sleeve. Then when you go to visit the headquarters of some conniving organization that plans to take over the world and the chief meanie excuses himself or herself to get you a cup of tea or maybe a glass of water, you can pull out your IRISPen and do some quick scanning of whatever ultra-secret plans you find on his or her desk. And once again, the world will be saved only through your unsung efforts.

Of course, in the demo I saw at CES, the pen was attached to a computer via a USB cable. So you’ll have to hide one of those up your sleeve too.

But here’s how it works. The pen digitizes information contained in paper documents. You simply run its tip along the line of text you want scanned. The text — letters, number, symbols — shows up on the screen at the cursor position in whatever application you’re using.

The newest version of the pen, IRISPen 6, has enhancements, including a wizard for creating different user profiles, a redesigned interface and a greatly expanded list of languages that it recognizes.

It comes in three models, the Express, the Executive and the Translator, each priced differently and intended for a different user. And if time is tight, relax! This device will recognize up to 3.15 inches per second, plenty fast when it comes to saving the world.

Posted on January 17th, 2008 by dian