Based on technology from a Swedish company called Anoto, the Digital Pen looks and feels like a regular ballpoint pen. Unlike regular pens, the Digital Pen contains an integrated digital camera, an advanced image microprocessor, and USB connection or Bluetooth wireless capability. Users write with the Digital Pen on paper which contains a nearly invisible and unique to every page dot pattern in the background. The camera takes digital snapshots while the user is writing, capturing enough data to determine the exact position of the pen, what it writes or draws, the time each pen stroke was made, as well as on which particular paper form writing occurred.

All of this data is then retained in the pen’s memory as a series of coordinates. The pen can store many pages of handwritten data at a time. Once the user has finished writing, the pen can be docked to a PC where the data can be downloaded and processed by special software with handwriting capture and processing capability.