Oxford Papershow

The Oxford Papershow is a digital pen that links wirelessly (via Bluetooth) directly to a PC. As you write on the Papershow paper, which is printed with a pattern of tiny micro-dots designed to be as unobtrusive as possible (they give the paper a light grey sheen – nothing more), the image appears live on your computer screen. All the software is on the dongle, which is also used for storing your work, so you can easily transfer the pen from one PC to another.
On the right-hand side of the pad is a series of printed ‘buttons’ – tap these with the pen to change colour, thickness, draw shapes and the like. The changes don’t appear on the paper, but on the screen.
And that’s pretty much it. Unfortunately, the Papershow isn’t designed to recognise handwriting and, because it has to be connected to a PC, you can’t take notes on the fly. Where it might come into its own is if you want to make annotations during a presentation – you could, for example, print documents onto Papershow paper and annotate them as you conduct your presentation. But the uses are fairly limited. It could be plenty of fun but it is quite pricey for what it does, especially when compared it to its rival, the Livescribe Pulse Smartpen.