Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

I reveal my concept for the spell-checking pencil. The technology is only five years away.

I’ve had this idea for years. Now is the time to reveal it to the world. Maybe someone will build it and send me a dollar or something for the idea. The idea is for a

spell-checking pencil

Here is how it works. The pencil – could be a pen or felt tip marker or white board marker – has an accelerometer in it. The accelerometer senses the motion of the pencil as it move across the paper. The pencil has another sensor that senses the friction of the pencil against a surface. This way, the pencil knows when it is being waved about in the air versus when it is being used to write.

The sensors understand the motion of the pencil on paper, i.e., they can tell what letters the writer is writing. The pencil understands the connections of the letters into words. The pencil also has a spell checker built into its on-board computer. When the writer writes a word with incorrect spelling, the pencil beeps or vibrates. A display on the side of the pencil shows the correct spelling of the word. The writer has the oppotunity to erase and write the word correctly.

To build this spell-checking pencil, we would need:

1. an accelerometer that is really small
2. a friction sensor that is really small
3. a computer small enough to fit into the pencil
4. a good spell checker

Item 1. doesn’t exist yet. I guess it is five years away. I think item 2. already exists. Item 3. doesn’t exist yet, but could in five to ten years. Item 4. already exists.

I have in interim solution to speed the development of this pencil. Instead of embedding the accelerometer, friction sensor, and computer into the pencil, we can put a ring or slip-on gadget on the pointer finger of the user. That gadget would have the accelerometer and friction sensor. That gadget would also have an RF device like a WiFi or Bluetooth that would communicate with a nearby computer. The nearby computer would have the spell-checker and display. A person’s laptop computer would suffice.

Okay, there it is. Someone out there go and build this thing. Would anyone want it? Yes, I would. I tend to write with pencil and pen and chalk and marker more than most people I know plus I tend to worry about spelling, so build it for me. It would also be useful to anyone in business or education who stands at a white board and embarasses themselves by missspelllling words on the board.