Amit has a post about a new device called the LongPen. The device appears

The first author to use the device is well-known Canadian author Margaret Atwood. The idea stemmed from her realization one day that touring was getting tiresome. According to the website, her subsequent conversations with some people led to the LongPen (see Unotchit).

While I think that this device has some excellent potential applications, I wouldn’t pay $35 for a hardcover book, just to have it signed remotely. Part of the point of having an author’s real signature, right there in person, is the human contact aspect.

One might argue that a real signature, in person, is done by a pen and thus still not truly done by the author. But I don’t buy that. And I won’t. The greater irony is that many of Atwood’s award-winning novels point out the possible loss of humanity in near-future societies. (This genre, at least in Canada, is referred to as slipstream.)

My opinions aside, the first tele-signing was scheduled to take place yesterday, at a popular bookstore/ cafe/ filmhouse in my hometown, while Atwood was somewhere in Europe. While the LongPen device itself did not fail, the laptop receiving transmissions did.

While I have great respect for Margaret Atwood, I think that a better use for the pen might be to combine with voice technology, to help quadraplegics or others to be able to write. If the technology can be miniaturized, maybe it can even be incorporated into prosthetic arms and hands, to aid those that have lost an arm.

Overall though, I want my favourite author’s autographs directly from their hand. How do you feel about this?

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