The Rocketbook Notepad Digitizes Instantly, Can Be Reused After Heating

The combination of pen and paper is still an untouchable medium when it comes to visualizing thoughts and recording ideas, even in this world of digital convenience. That is surely why Moleskin notebooks, which offer an easy way of converting ink to pixels, are so popular. The only drawback with such a system is its expense, both in terms of financially replacing leather-bound book after leather-bound book, and in terms of the environmental wastage of endlessly culling trees. A new product named Rocketbook seems to provide the perfect solution. Like Moleskin, it allows notes to be easily scanned, but the contents of its pages can also be erased by heating.

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The paper inside isn’t of the standard office type, of course, and the system of write-and-refresh is designed specifically for use with Pilot’s FriXion pens. This particular model of pen uses ink which vanishes when heated. Hence, the pages of the Rocketbook are treated to cope with the intense heat of a microwave, so that when you’ve finished with your scribbles, you can make them vanish with a quick thirty-second blast.

For the scrawls you wish to keep, Rocketbook has a smartphone app. It works by utilizing your phone’s camera to scan the pages, and it does so at remarkable speed, with superb detail. Scanning the whole notebook takes a couple of minutes at most, as the app can keep up with slow but constant page turning. Scans can then swiftly be transferred to destinations such as Evernote, or shared via email, and there is even a system of icons along the bottom of each page which instructs the app to place the scan in a certain folder, or send it to a certain recipient. This really is a vision of a paperless future.

The only thing in the way of these notebooks taking over the world is the small matter of IndieGoGo funding. However, at the time of writing, the project has raised ten times its original target, so the path to market is currently looking smooth. For backers, an 8 ½” x 11”, fifty-page Rocketbook is available for the appealing price of $25, with multi-packs and FriXion pens on offer for a few dollars more.

To find out more about Rocketbook, see the company’s website.