(Archived) Wii Whiteboard + Evernote = Awesome Digital Whiteboard

[jjeudymd 0]

Here's an Evernote use I'm sure many would appreciate!

Quite a few may be aware of some ingenious software (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/) that syncs to a Wii remote's infrared camera pointed at a projection screen and will track the movement of an IR Pen. The result allows one to use virtually any surface as an interactive whiteboard or tablet.

I thought this would be cool to have in my office and immediately I thought how great it would be if I could hook this up with Evernote.

My setup is a PC with 2 display inputs, one being the computer monitor and the other input connected to my LCD projector. I open a full screen ink note on the projected screen (appx 54" x 72") while the Wii remote and software tracks my IR pen.

The results have been incredibly satisfying: Instead of having to take individual pictures of a real whiteboard and then send them to Evernote, I have a beautiful low cost digital whiteboard with Evernote automatically archiving each session, and the ink text is also searchable. I can even review my whiteboard sessions on my iPhone! Want to impress the folks at work even further? Write a title for your session at the top of the note and within a moment or two, Evernote has already recognized your handwriting and has titled the note with what you wrote!

Even with these great results, I was wondering if there could be some additional features to highlight Evernote's additional utility for whiteboard notes:

- I still have some resistance to having all notes as a continuous "tape" of ideas and still would like the idea of pages. I like the concept of being able to "tear away" a page and start on a new thread of ideas, yet at the same time, be able to page back through the previous ideas that were already discussed on. This would be even more appropriate in a whiteboard type session. Perhaps having the option of creating a notebook with serial pages which are linked together. That way you could simply page through the notes in a single window. Additionally you should be able to rearrange the "pages" and be able to export the notebook as an entire PDF book with a table of contents included.

- The ability to easily draw straight lines & arrows

- simple button that would stamp the page with date and time (and the ability to highlight and drag that stamp to another portion of the page)

- easy ability to copy/paste/resize images onto the page

Overall, I think this continues to showcase the possibilities with Evernote. This in particular may be a whole new way that people use Evernote, partiularly in the classroom or boardroom.

If you are looking for any evaluators of these new tools, please let me know!