John Dickinson produces a branded range of stationery, including Black n'Red, New Guardian, Plus Fabric and Basildon Bond at its manufacturing plants in Sawston, Cambridgeshire, Ledbury, Herefordshire and Washington, Tyne and Wear. The Anoto concept intuitively connects paper and pen with the digital world. The concept consists of a pattern that can be printed on any paper, a digital pen with Anoto functionality that can read the pattern and record the pressure and movement of the pen, advanced image processing and the information structure pinpointing the pen's position on the pattern and which service the user has chosen to activate. The pen contains a Bluetooth radio transceiver. When writing with an Anoto pen on a paper printed with the Anoto pattern, digital snapshots of the pattern are taken continuously.
Every snapshot contains enough information to make a calculation of the exact position of the pen.
A digital trace is thus created by the movement of the pen. The digital pen with Anoto functionality does not only record what was written, but also how it was done. The application can therefore be used to verify and identify who wrote. The pen records simultaneously position, speed, pressure on the paper and the exact time. The information is transmitted, via a mobile phone or computer, as a graphical e-mail, fax, SMS or input to databases assisted by the infrastructure provided by the Anoto concept.