SHOT NOTE - Next-generation Notepad for Smartphones

At Tokyo International Gift Show Spring 2011, King Jim exhibited the SHOT NOTE, a notepad for storing handwritten notes in digital format. This product will be released on February 7.

"Everyone's gotten used to using smartphones like the iPhone, and some people make notes on their iPhone. But many people think that paper notepads are easier to use. Although it is easy to write on paper notepads, paper notes can also be lost. And if you have a lot of them, it's hard to search for particular notes. So we wanted to make a product that combines the advantages of paper with smartphones, to make writing, as well as searching and organizing easy."

The SHOT NOTE is used with a special-purpose, free iPhone application. When you start up the application and take a photo of your handwritten notes, the application recognises the markers in the corners of the SHOT NOTE and automatically compensates for perspective distortion, color, and size, enabling the notes to fit into the screen precisely.

"Handwritten text can be imported as-is from the photo, and if you write in the No. and DATE boxes, on the top right of the notes, they get read using OCR. You can use the number and date to search your data and re-arrange your notes."

"Of course, you can just put your iPhone photos in the camera roll. But lots of iPhone owners also use Evernote, and they want to keep all their e-mails, pictures, and information together in Evernote. So to meet that need, we've made it possible to send notes made using the SHOT NOTE to Evernote."

Currently, the SHOT NOTE supports the iPhone only. But King Jim is thinking about providing applications for other smartphones.

The notepads are available in small, medium, and large sizes, and is priced from 320 to 600 yen. King Jim intends to sell 150,000 notepads in the first year.