Margaret Atwood’s Long Pen lives
Two years ago, I picked up the Globe and Mail newspaper and read about how Margaret Atwood had invented the ‘Long Pen’ - a remote autographing machine so authors didn’t have to leave their homes to sign books. I thought it was a joke, so did the Globe and Mail and lots of other people. It wasn’t.
Earlier this year, I was wandering around the London Book Fair and there she was. Magaret Atwood was manning the Long Pen booth, flogging her product, and I actually used the machine. I signed a square glass surface built into one machine and a few yards away my signature was replicated by a robotic arm on to a piece of paper.
I thought it was very clever but it seems to me that the Long Pen would have many other applications aside from author signings - sports stars signing contracts with their new team, mega-bucks international business deals etc.
The Canadian Press reports how the Long Pen is now being trialled in some shops.
August 20th, 2007 at 11:45 am
I would be embarrassed to see my name associated in any way with the Long Pen.
Wait a minute.
August 27th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
[…] However smitten I might be with technology, however high I’m prepared to fly the flag of the early adopters, I must admit I do have my blind spots. Exhibit A: the LongPenâ„¢. When Margaret Atwood, brilliant writer and peerless creator of dystopian worlds (including a chilling one wrought by genomics), said she had developed a device that would let authors sign autographs remotely, lots of folks thought it was a joke. […]