Smart Pen Corrects Spelling

Smart Pen Corrects Spelling and Handwriting Errors

As if another device is needed to make people worse spellers than spell check, two German entrepreneurs have invented the self-correcting pen.

The Lernstift is a regular pen with real ink, but inside is a special motion sensor and a small battery-powered Linux computer with a WiFi chip. In conjunction the parts allow the pen to recognize specific movements, letter shapes and know a wide assortment of words. If it senses bad letter formation or messy handwriting, it will gently vibrate. The goal is also to make it smart enough that when you misspell a word it will vibrate as well.

“The pen will have two functions — calligraphy and orthography mode,” Daniel Kaesmacher, the 33-year-old co-founder of Lernstift said. “When it comes to orthography mode — the pen will be able to recognize words and compare the word it recognized to a language database. If the word isn’t recognized it will vibrate.”

With that spelling and writing functionality, Lernstift, which means ‘Learning Pen’ in German, is aimed at kids just learning to write. In fact, co-founder Falk Wolsky, 36, had the idea for the pen last year while his 10-year-old son was doing his homework.

“His son had been struggling with his work and staying focused and Falk thought there should be a pen that gives him some sort of signal so he stays focused,” Kaesmacher explained.

The smart pen has been in development over about a year and a half.  The company has gone to Kickstarter for funding but the potential of such a device is obvious for school age children.

Bringing any product to the general market is a tough task. “We have a lot of testing to do and we will start soon with a whole school class,” Kaesmacher said.

Eventually they plan to have the pen work with smartphones and tablets. An app could allow parents to see their child’s progress, and similar to other digital pens, like the Livescribe Pulse, notes could be uploaded and sent via e-mail. What makes the Lernstift so much different than the competition is that it works like a regular pen as other similar devices require screens or special paper.

“The basic functionality is all in the pen, there is no app needed to perform the basic activities,” Kaesmacher said. “But there are a lot more possibilities.”