WACOM has started a new company and their board members include Samsung, Wacom, Fujitsu and Montblanc. It is called the Digital Stationery Consortium and it will create a universal digital ink framework for sharing handwritten notes, drawings and sketches between users, regardless of platform.
The new digital framework is called WILL which is a universal ink engine and ink layer framework that connects hardware, software, and applications, enabling high-quality digital pen and ink experiences and letting people express their thoughts and ideas in an intuitive and instinctive way, using their own handwriting. The framework supports all kinds of input and provides natural ink expression while keeping digital ink native so it can be further processed and exchanged.
Here are the key selling points behind this new open source framework.
- Drive a new era of creativity, growth, and productivity by establishing and growing digital stationery as a new market category
- Create an open exchange and network forum for industry partners to create and promote digital stationery
- Explore open, global, cross-industry partnerships
- Collaboratively identify new markets, user needs, and requirements for digital stationery experiences
- Evangelize the necessity to establish and further evolve WILL as a truly universal digital ink system that is able to bridge ecosystems, platforms, and applications
- Explore ways to make digital stationery an integrated part of cloud-enabled, distributed and smart ecosystems
- Foster a trusted exchange of insights that advance the digital stationery market category with the goal to build new value and use cases for every user
This new consortium intends on organizing four events per year in order to drive awareness to developers, e-reader companies and smartphone/tablet vendors.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
