Be Smart

Digital pens that can capture handwritten notes, drawings, and memos, store them electronically, and even turn them into digital text are not exactly a dime a dozen, but they've been around for a while. Here's a new and mind-boggling variation that sounds straight out of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

The Mobile Digital Scribe claims to be the first device that can capture and store handwriting employing only - here's the mind-boggling part - ordinary paper and an ordinary ballpoint pen refill available at your average office-supply center. The company says you don't need a special digital notepad or special digital ink to take electronic notes that you can upload to a computer for display, export in JPEG, or even turn into text.

I'll be fascinated to read the reviews. But if the process is as easy as its promotional material makes it seem, the Mobile Digital Scribe should be heaven for those - medical types, journalists, students - who would rather be wired but must take handwritten notes because they're on the move or in class.