'Cut and Paste' Is Out, 'Pick and Drop' Is In

Roland Piquepaille writes "How do you exchange a file with a colleague or a photograph with a family member? Chances are that you cut the desired element and paste it into your e-mail program to send it. Now, imagine yourself in a meeting, picking a file on your PDA with a digital pen and using the same pen to drop it on your friend's laptop screen. This is exactly what Jun Rekimoto and his team at Sony Interaction Laboratory have developed with their 'pick and drop' technique. BBC News looks at this project in Digital pen takes on mouse. Because it's based on cheap and existing components, such a system might be released in the near future, though Sony hasn't announced any plans to do it. You'll find more details and pictures in this overview."

Roland Piquepaille is a spammer

[Anonymous Coward]

see this slashdot article for insight [slashdot.org], needless to say slashdot keeps feeding him while he steals other peoples content and reposts it as his own

Submitter is a spammer

[Anonymous Coward]

come on Michael do your homework

Roland Piquepaille story spammer [slashdot.org]

Re:Novelty?

[mobiux]

From what I read, the memory is limitless, because the pen is just what is being manipulated.

All the work is done when you tell the "pen server" to acknowledge this click as something you want to pick up. (probably by a button on a stylus)

Then you the next time you tap the pen (or after you click the button on the stylus) it drops it in the next place.

So the pen actually would have any memory.

More info on how it works

[ifoxtrot]

Check out the paper [sony.co.jp] he submitted at CHI. Also the BBC has a story about this at this address [bbc.co.uk].
In short, the pen doesn't actually store the file, but uses a third server to mark and notify which file should be copied to where...

Re:Old news

[cosmo7]

Mac System 7 had "publish and subscribe", which was similar to this idea in the sense that it made a lot of sense, saved time, had a consistent metaphor, and was used by nobody.

Re:expensive pens

[gtaluvit]

RTFA. The stylus has an ID. From what I read, you touch a file with the stylus and your computer basically says "this file is about to be transferred with this stylus". When you touch another computer with it, that computer asks the network "I'm a computer looking for a file from this stylus" and the original responds by sending it. Old idea, new interface. I like it.

Re:Hmm

[maxbang]

Much like holding down the address button on your Palm pda to automatically transmit your business card data to another pda?

This is not a storage device shaped like a pen

[CableModemSniper]

Several people posting seem to have the impression that this thing is like a USB thumb drive shaped like a pen. It is not a storage device, it is an interface metaphor. The actual data still has to move across a network. It is just a more fluid and intuitive (well fluid and intuitive is a matter of opinion) of telling the systems to transfer data. ie, instead of expilictly transfering the data from the PDA (via hotsync, ftp, nfs, whatever) the pen motion initiates an implicit transfer of data.

Already exists

[ajlitt]

Most bluetooth or IrDA cellphones support swapping business cards using the same standard (vCard) as PDAs and other IrDA compatible devices use. I've used my cellphone at conferences to beam business cards to and from all sorts of handheld gadgets.

This is a new technology?

[bahamat]

It seems like this is what I've been doing for years upon years with my mouse.

Macintosh in particular has had universal drag and drop for at least as long as I remember.