Wacom's  Bamboo Spark   gives digital life to handwritten notes and doodles
Bangalore, July 4 2016: Hands up all those who still   make notes with pen or pencil and paper!  Old fashioned note takers who shun  digital screens and a stylus,  may be a  vanishing breed,  but there are enough of us  out there for Japanese graphics tablet specialist Wacom,  to create  a device that neatly  bridges the  gap between a traditional sketch pen-n-pad  and a digital  stylus. 
Their answer is the Bamboo Spark,  which they call a 'smart folio' -- in effect a  folder  that contains  a flat board  with a receiver underneath working on the principle of Electro Magnetic  Resonance (EMR) . They provide an A5 sized writing pad, but you can use any similarly sized sheet of paper.  The pen is special,  though  it looks like a chunky ballpoint. It incorporates a EMR  transmitter  that digitizes  every pen stroke you make.  When you have charged the Bamboo Spark, it's good to go for about  8 hours.   Once you have put down your thoughts in the form of writing or  sketching, you press a button to save the page.   You can save up to 100 pages on the device itself.   But to edit or transmit your work, you need to install  the Bamboo Spark app which syncs your  work pad with your phone or  PC -- and stores your work in your own folder in the Wacom Cloud.   You can   refine and edit your work,  or export it  ( as jpeg or PDF)   to other  tools like  One note, Evernote  or Dropbox.   You would need a solution like this if you want to convert  hand writing to  soft text.
Many artists were uncomfortable with  graphic tablets  since the stylus never gave them a feel of a pen.  Bamboo Spark will be a welcome alternative -- letting them work with normal paper but    letting them digitally manipulate their  work.  For the rest of use lazy note takers it will have many uses.  It costs Rs 10,975 and comes with a couple of ink refills.  Visual thinkers will not find that an  unreasonable asking price to   unleash their creativity.
Anand Parthasarathy.