After a few false starts-including a cumbersome version that inferred what the user was writing from the pen’s movements-Wang’s team took advantage of advances in computer vision algorithms and based the pen’s sensing on a simple digital camera. Not only did Microsoft stick with Wang, but it also allowed him to build a team of about 20 researchers, giving him access to the skills in programming and hardware he needed to design the pen. It took the better part of four years to make it work. “When we talked with Bill about this technology,” says Wang, “we realized we are inventing a new kind of document, not just a pen.” The key idea, which fits with Microsoft’s business of making office computers more useful, was that a document could be kept digital even when printed-with the right kind of pen interface and software. Immediately, Wang, Lee, and a core group of researchers began daily brainstorming sessions to iron out the project’s goals-sessions that eventually included their top boss.

“I realized this is the place to be if you want your invention to be used by millions of people instead of just a couple.” With that motivation, Wang left Zhejiang University and joined the Beijing lab in the fall of 1999. “We wanted to make a breakthrough, not improvements,” he says, adding that in Microsoft he had found a perfect partner. But from his academic research on 3-D interfaces, he had learned that if technology isn’t designed to be practical and appealing to a variety of users, it won’t be widely adopted. The pen project was inspired in part by Wang’s desire to enable mobile computers to handle handwritten Asian languages. He quickly discovered that he and Lee shared the ambition to create a user interface for computers that was based on handwriting. “I don’t know how he got my name,” laughs Wang, “and he didn’t explain who he was.”įeeling adventurous, Wang went anyway. Lee suggested they meet but was too busy to explain why. Then, in 1998, at the height of his academic career, he received a cryptic e-mail from Kai-Fu Lee, a renowned researcher who was just starting up Microsoft’s Beijing lab. As a professor of engineering psychology at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, Wang had made his name in human-computer interfaces and virtual-reality systems. Amidst these reminders of the analog world, the inventor describes the beginnings of the pen project. Himalayan stacks of papers fill Wang’s office, despite his proclaimed distaste for printouts.

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