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REALTECHNEWS.COM GoodBye to Book Tours? LongPen Allows Signing Books from Afar March 6, 2006 By Michael Santo Author Margaret Atwood has grown weary of the traveling that comes with promotional book tours. Such tours are grueling, and her experience with delivery drivers who hold out an electronic device for a signature gave her an idea: maybe there was a way to create a system whereby she could sign a book from a distance. She teamed with Matthew Gibson and several others to produce the device, naming the firm Unotchit pronounced “you no touch it.” The device was given its first-ever public demonstration on Sunday, and despite technical glitches that had to be overcome, they managed to get the device working. Anxious minutes later, Atwood picked up a pen to autograph her new short story collection, “The Tent,” for Nigel Newton, chief executive of her British publisher, Bloomsbury. She wrote the words on an electronic pad while chatting to Newton over a video linkup. A few seconds later in another part of the exhibition center, two spindly metal arms clutching a pen reproduced the words onto Newton’s book in Atwood’s angular scrawl: “For Nigel, with best wishes, Margaret Atwood.” When Atwood, 66, announced her invention late in 2004, many assumed it was a hoax. But the inventive spirit is not surprising from an author whose interest in science and technology informed science fiction-flavored novels such as “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Oryx and Crake.” Source: ABC News We Say: Obviously the first demo wasn’t cross-country or anything, merely in the same exhibition center, but it’s still cool. The company plans on leasing, rather than selling the devices, and hopes it will encourage promotion of lesser-known authors as well as signings in locations that otherwise would be unable to afford it. As a sidenote, The Handmaid’s Tale is one of my wife’s favorite books, and also one of her favorite movie. She was really intrigued that Atwood came up with the idea for this invention. |  |