
Moleskine X Adobe - riffraff
http://www.moleskine.com/en/news/adobe
======
NotOscarWilde
Being a PhD CS student, I find it professionally disappointing that this
technology arises mainly for graphic artists where the translation from ink to
content is basically dot per dot. Or dot per vector, but in this case already
arcs have some internal order that vectorization misses (have characters on a
different layer than background, etc).

I understand the targeting -- there's vastly more doodlers (professional or
amateur) than scientists with cash in their pocket for gadgets. [1] Generating
LaTeX from handwriting [2] is still in the distant future, ebook readers for
people with A4 needs have gone stagnant since 2010 (although there is the
extremely expensive Sony DPT-S1 [3] ).

The main advances I see in science is making faster use of the technology of
yesteryear -- streaming classes and conferences on YouTube, arXiv being near
mandatory now in CS, and so forth.

[1]: I am currenly a person in that exact group -- the university where I am a
PhD student has a surplus of equipment funds every year. Every December, I am
asked whether I want a laptop, a tablet, or anything else (with the implied
condition that it should be purchasable in Central Europe, which rules out
several products such as the DPT-S1 [3] or the Microsoft Surface). I have so
far always declined as there's nothing that I can imagine improving my
productivity.

[2]: [https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/1443/what-is-the-
sta...](https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/1443/what-is-the-status-of-
generating-latex-from-handwriting-i-e-ocr) (2010)

[3]: [https://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/product-
DPTS1/?PID=I:digitalpa...](https://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/product-
DPTS1/?PID=I:digitalpaper:digitalpaperproductpage)

~~~
RBerenguel
It's not exactly TeX from handwriting, but the developers at MyScript [1] seem
to be doing a pretty good job at parsing basic TeX for notetaking. I met some
a few years ago at the MWC and talked a little about TeX "recognition" and
well, it got added to their flagship handwriting app. Still far from perfect
(won't get you a \mathfrak) but usable enough for taking quick
course/lecture/ideas notes.

[1]: [http://www.myscript.com/](http://www.myscript.com/)

~~~
reitanqild
Myscripts math demo for android, while just a toy calculator [1], really
impressed me. With that I can easily and smoothly draw complicated
calculations, then draw a square root symbol on top of it and see it recognize
it, draw a line underneath and divide the whole thing by something, -no
problem.

The notepad thingy that was supposed to be a real product was a real
disappointment in comparison imo.

[1]: It see s to use floats internally and doesn't make any attempt at hiding
it. Try sin(360)

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HarrietJones
The only tech I see from the MoleSkine side is the positioning of dots on the
page. Adobe use these as guide marks for scanning, sizing and rotating. I'm
wondering how easy it would be to just draw the dots in the right place, and
have the App scan your picture correctly.

~~~
Joeri
I bet there is a design patent on the exact placement of the dots, preventing
competing notebooks.

~~~
cicero99
How easy do you think it would be to acquire just a single page of these and
replicate it was an inkjet printer? $35 for a paper notebook isn't worth it- I
tend to make a hundred drawings for every one I actually vectorize and use as
is, so it this wouldn't be practical. Anyway, an expensive notebook is always
intimidating, I go for cheaper ones with tear out pages so I don think about
being wasteful when I'm creating

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stewbrew
33 EUR for a notebook with a few dots printed on its pages?

[http://store.moleskine.com/aut/de-de/catalog/detail/smart-
no...](http://store.moleskine.com/aut/de-de/catalog/detail/smart-notebook-
creative-cloud-connected/adobe0notebook14)

------
lytfyre
I'll stick with my leuchtturm link[1] notebook. Seems more flexible, and I
don't see it as a real advantage to directly tie the image to adobe's stuff
vs. dropbox/email.

[1] [http://www.leuchtturm1917.com/en/content/whitelines-
link-%C2...](http://www.leuchtturm1917.com/en/content/whitelines-link-%C2%AE)

~~~
ParvusPonte
But but but... that doesn't have the 5 orientation dots like the Moleskine
smart book! How could you possibly snap a picture of your work and vectorize
it? How? How? Imposiblu!

~~~
lytfyre
There actually are orientation patterns in the corners - and they do seem to
help it do a good job of un-stretching the page.

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marban
Generally speaking, kudos to Moleskine for capitalizing on a mundane product &
average quality but nothing beats japanese brands when it comes to fine paper.
Also, you might give Whitelines[1] a whirl for scanning sketches.

[1]([http://whitelines.se](http://whitelines.se))

~~~
davb
> nothing beats japanese brands when it comes to fine paper

Any recommendations?

~~~
marban
Maruman Mnemosyne e.g. [http://www.jetpens.com/Maruman-Mnemosyne-
Notebooks/ct/765](http://www.jetpens.com/Maruman-Mnemosyne-Notebooks/ct/765)

~~~
afandian
Any more suggestions? (That looks good but I'm hoping to find something I'd
never heard of but readily available in the UK)

~~~
marban
There's [http://www.thejournalshop.com](http://www.thejournalshop.com) in the
UK; not sure about their JP stuff. Midori might be a cheap choice but they're
turning more and more into a Moleskine-like brand.

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felixthehat
Surely this is just the existing Adobe Shapes app rebranded?

[https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/adobe-shape-cc-capture-
creat...](https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/adobe-shape-cc-capture-
create/id919014644?mt=8)

------
chrischen
Actually, I just released this to a test batch of artists:
[https://www.instapainting.com/projects/5465aa8b90f1f8845d8b4...](https://www.instapainting.com/projects/5465aa8b90f1f8845d8b4568)

It uses automatic detection without corner markers shown in the video, so it
can actually work with any book/paper. This example:
[https://www.instapainting.com/projects/546ade9890f1f85d2a8b4...](https://www.instapainting.com/projects/546ade9890f1f85d2a8b456c)
is actually with a moleskine notebook, although I had to draw a black line in
the fold to help it detect it.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Not really sure what we're seeing in your links - I'm assuming you've created
an app that uploads images to instapainting? Would be good if they were
whitebalanced.

I'm guessing the pages you link are tailored to a particular browser that's
not FF as those pages look appalling on FF ;0)

~~~
chrischen
It's actually an app that lets you take photos of artwork and it automatically
crops and aligns them like the adobe app, but you can use it to create
seamless time-lapse.

Thanks for the FF heads up.

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raverbashing
The title seems to imply a dispute between them when in fact it's a
partnership.

~~~
situationista
"x" in Italian (Moleskine is an Italian company) stands for "per", which means
for. It's shorthand for partnership round here.

~~~
robin_reala
‘×’ is used to signify a crossover product in Japan too.

~~~
afandian
And the cross-product in maths!
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_product](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_product)

------
aikah
Any (cheaper) alternative to this? Not that it is that expensive,but I want to
offer 5/10 of these as gifts,so I wonder if there are cheaper alternative
systems available in Europe.

Looks great anyway.

------
deutronium
I was tempted to get one of these digital pens [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wacom-
Inkling-Digital-Sketch-Pen/dp/...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wacom-Inkling-
Digital-Sketch-Pen/dp/B006DLPYPQ)

But I've read slightly mixed reviews about them? Anyone used one?

------
rebel
It seems to me Adobe has been much more innovative now that they have their
Creative Cloud service. I wonder if this is a result of increased revenues
from Creative Cloud or part of their efforts to get everyone to upgrade to the
subscription service.

~~~
radiorental
Very much the latter. We're a shop with 60 creatives pushed hard over to CC. I
believe the regular recurring licensing model is better business for them over
the long term.

------
seren
Naive question : is there an equivalent application that would allow to
quickly transform my handwriting into unicode ?(Basically OCR but maybe with
some learning mechanism)

~~~
taude
Livescribe has been doing this with handwriting for awhile:
[http://www.livescribe.com/](http://www.livescribe.com/)

~~~
seren
I have looked a bit into it, it seems it exports the writing sessions in a
kind of proprietary format. Thanks for the recommendation, it looks like an
interesting solution anyway.

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coned88
The problem with these products is in 3-4 years it will not be sold anymore.

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DiabloD3
As far as Moleskine partnerships go, this doesn't top Evernote's.

~~~
masukomi
I think you're missing the key difference. It converts the image to an SVG. I
see zero mention of that with the Evernote version. This is HUGE for anyone
who wants to actually _use_ the image rather than just have a cloud based copy
of it.

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dharma1
i don't see how this is different from just vectorising any bitmap image?

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mangeletti
I love Moleskine...

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ParvusPonte
And Moleskine's contribution to this "technology" are the 5 dots printed on
every page. Wow.

I've seen better joined marketing campaigns.

~~~
blumkvist
Marketing campaigns are evaluated on their impact to the top line, not on
"contribution to technology".

~~~
ParvusPonte
Two separate observations there, buddy.

~~~
blumkvist
What observations? You say that it's not good marketing, because moleskine did
not contribute some 'grand technology' to the project.

I say you can't possibly know if it is good or not, because you don't have the
research and data behind it, and you most definitely cannot predict how it
will affect their revenue and/or brand loyalty.

My opinion is that it will pan out really great for them. I would tell you
what position I hold and the size of the company, but I'm sure that will only
lead to some "appeal to authority" comment on your part.

