Cellular phones are converging with PCs and PDAs. Some cell phones come with touchscreen displays, but the screens are primarily for data entry in PDA mode. This idea suggests the displays should also allow the user to transmit sketches and text.

Now you can call your friend for directions and, rather than rely on "left"s and "right"s, s/he can send you a map. Send written text messages (using a stylus) more easily than with SMS - no character recognition required (but neatness counts).
-- phoenix, Jul 23 2003

I have been arguing for years that the pen is the most natural form of input. Croissant.
-- DrCurry, Jul 23 2003


What about the finger? What's natural about a pen?
-- silverstormer, Jul 23 2003


[jutta] agreed - the technology is already there for a PDA/MMS phone to take a picture, store it in the device, and then transmit the picture.

It would surely be a piece of cake to save a hand-drawn file and transmit that instead.

Admittedly these pictures have a limited area, probably 160x120 pixels or something (not 100% sure about actual size), but since they use a lot of colours you could send black and white or limited grayscale pictures larger than that with an equivalent or smaller file size. You could then scroll around them by moving to the edge of the screen with a stylus.

One big fat (+) from me.
-- rodti, Aug 07 2003


I'd forgotten about this idea until [Rods Tiger] caused me to look it up. I concede that I confused the capabilities of MMS and SMS but I've never used either so it's an honest mistake.
-- phoenix, Dec 29 2003


think this is pretty much baked now.. one can email it, MMS it, bluetooth it or whatever.
-- neilp, Dec 21 2004



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