Slate, Microsoft, Apple, Lotus, GO and General Magic Team on Standard for Electronic Ink; Allows Computers to Manage and Share Handwritten Information

May 24, 1993 — Six software companies Monday introduced Jot 1.0, an electronic ink specification that enables computer software applications to share handwritten notes, sketches, signatures and other free-form data across a broad spectrum of computer platforms.

Ink is created by writing or drawing directly on a computer or device screen with an electronic pen. Until now, various pen operating systems and applications had to use ink in a proprietary way and systems without a pen could not use ink at all. The Jot 1.0 specification provides a simple and open definition for ink, so applications can manipulate it and users can exchange it between a range of computers including hand-held consumer devices to mainframes.

The intent of the specification is similar to other standards widely used in the software industry. Version 1.0 of the specification contains language permitting developers to incorporate and use any portion of the specification without hindrance.

Jot 1.0 represents months of effort by a committee led by Slate Corp. and made up of technical representatives from Apple, General Magic, GO, Lotus, Microsoft, and Slate.

Rick Spitz, vice president of Macintosh System Software, Apple Computer, said: “Our contribution to the creation of the Jot specification will ensure the integrity of data across platforms as pen computing becomes more pervasive. With Apple’s implementation of the Jot specification, customers will be assured that they can benefit from the traditional ease of use they’ve come to expect from Apple.”

Bob Atkinson, chief scientist, General Magic, said: “The creation of Jot fills a critical gap by providing a standard for electronic ink. Ultimately, broad support of Jot helps users by making it possible for them to exchange ink messages across platforms. General Magic plans to use Jot to represent ink in Telescript. Our support of Jot is an important part of our work to establish a ubiquitous modern communication standard.”

Mike Homer, vice president of marketing, GO Corp., said: “GO’s support of the Jot standard further demonstrates our commitment to empower users of PenPoint-based personal communicators to effectively share information with whom-ever they want, whether it involves a PDA, a desktop PC, or even a telephone.

“Later this year we will incorporate the specification into our PenPoint operating system and GO applications. The powerful combination of PenPoint’s object-oriented architecture, desktop integration capabilities and Jot support will uniquely enable PenPoint developers to quickly and easily build even greater functionality into their applications.”

Larry Crume, vice president of the Electronic Messaging and Mobile Computing Division, Lotus Development Corp., said: “Lotus has actively participated in developing the Jot 1.0 standard as part of our ongoing strategy to offer cross-platform solutions. Cross-platform standards such as Jot 1.0 will speed the development of pen-enabled applications.

“We recognize the growing importance of electronic ink, especially with applications such as cc:Mail, Notes and Lotus Organizer, that appeal to mobile professionals. Jot 1.0 is a logical extension to our ‘Working Together’ strategy, in which Lotus plans to extend its support for rich data types such as audio, video, image and ink across our suite of applications.”

Pradeep Singh, group manager of the Mobile Services Group, Microsoft, said: “The Jot specification goes a long way toward establishing a consistent ink standard across multiple platforms and applications. Microsoft will support Jot 1.0 in the next release of Windows for Pen Computing. Forms and electronic mail are examples of applications in which users will want to use electronic ink and move and manipulate the data across different environments. Jot 1.0 makes this possible.”

Dan Bricklin, vice president of new technology, Slate, said: “The Jot specification creates a powerful new data type that will unleash a revolutionary new way of exchanging free-form information between computers. Slate’s PenApps Application Builder is the first shipping product that implements Jot. All of our applications will support Jot in their next version upgrade. We want to lead the way for other vendors to incorporate this important standard.”

Ink stored in the Jot format maintains complete likeness to the original. The specification includes information about the pen tip used, the color of the ink, the sampling rate of the digitizer, the angles used to write, the stylus force and more. This information is stored in a record that contains enough information to enable an application unfamiliar with a particular property to ignore it, resulting in a common definition for ink.

Through this consistent description of ink, applications can provide a rich set of ink operations for users. Some of these operations include displaying and scaling ink for a range of applications and devices from palm- to wall-size, translating ink to other computer formats, deferring handwriting translation, compressing ink and analyzing ink for content.

Since Jot can be implemented on any platform — whether or not the platform supports a pen device — it solves the problem of ink sharing throughout an organization. Common methods of ink sharing include: embedding ink in exist-ing documents, files or databases; providing clipboard operations; and supporting other inter-application transfers.

Jot facilitates ink embedded in e-mail messages. With Jot, e-mail applications can allow users to create new or mark up existing messages in ink and forward these messages to users on different computers. Field data can also be collected as ink using a portable pen-based device. After collection, the data can be transmitted to a central computer where it is stored, analyzed and shared with other applications throughout the enterprise.

Jot can also enable users to create sketches, doodles or annotations in applications such as word processors and spread-sheets that typically require document compatibility across platforms.

The Jot specification is expandable to accommodate new ink properties and capabilities. Jot is designed for forward and backward compatibility. New properties can be added to the ink specification without changing the behavior of applications written to an older version of the specification. New applications can be designed to handle previous versions of the format without special work.

Slate Corp. will collect comments and suggestions for future versions of Jot. The committee will meet regularly to review and ratify any changes to the specification.

Anyone can receive a copy of the Jot 1.0 specification document by contacting the Software Publishers Association (SPA) at 202/452-1600 extension 336. Comments, questions and suggestions about the specification should be directed to Slate Technical Support, Slate Corp., 15035 N. 73rd St., Scottsdale, Arizona 85260, 602/991-6844, fax: 602/443-3606, 75300,3236 on CompuServe. Slate will provide technical support free of charge to any developer incorporating the Jot standard.

CONTACT:
Wilson McHenry Co.
Julie McHenry or Gayle LeDoux, 415/592-7600 Slate Corp., Scottsdale
Maurice Voce, 602/443-7322 Apple Computer
Jennifer O’Mahony, 408/974-0643 General Magic
Jane Anderson, 415/966-6271 GO Corp.
Renee Risch, 415/358-2075 Lotus Development
Bob Steingart, 617/693-4287 Microsoft
Kim Wolfkill, 503/245-0905