Not much in the world of books makes me laugh out loud these days but the LongPen did. Not that it's a bad idea, autographing books by remote control. The whole experience recalls the early telegraph or maybe the early semaphore.

Basically it's a clunky new technology that actually works. It makes you think Wow! and then it makes you laugh.

The LongPen is a patented device made up of two machines in distant locations from each other: one where the author is, and one where you are. You probably are in a bookstore, cafe, or book festival. The author is at home with her feet up and two cats on her lap.

So. You buy a copy of her book and stand in line to get it autographed. Except in this case when you get to the front of the line you place your book on an easel, stare at a screen, look into a camera and speak into a microphone, while your author does exactly the same thing elsewhere. Think picture phone or video conference.

The funny thing happens next. You ask the author to sign your book. "Can you write Happy Birthday to Fred, from Ginger?" Yes, she can. Somewhere, probably very far away, the author grasps her LongPen and writes "Happy Birthday to Fred, from Ginger." The author scribbles with a light pen on a tablet PC. The robot pen in front of you downloads her moves, then begins to write on the title page just as if the author was there in front of you, but she's not there.

It's all controlled by computer, of course, utilizing the Internet, and the pen is directed by three small motors that follow the author's every twitch and scrawl.

When you first experience the author's ghostly pen moving across your book, you will laugh, as you did when you first saw the Claw Machine (you know, the coin box with pincers you control trying to grab cheap prizes).

"By using the LongPen and not taking a plane, author Kate Moss saved ONE TON of carbon emissions" the LongPen people boast. They say as many as 45 authors have saved as much as 75 metric tons of carbon using the device since November, 2007. That's a lot of carbon.

No longer do authors have to pile a favorite pillow into a suitcase and leave their loved ones only to put up with body searches and flight cancellations. Now they stay at home and turn on the LongPen.

I've seen the LongPen in action on video. Everyone seems to enjoy having a robot sign their book, and everyone likes talking with the author, even though they're really talking to a screen. It's almost like real life.

Kate Mosse says, "You can see them and they can see you, but you can't touch them. I thought it might feel sort of 'woman and machine' but it didn't, not at all. It felt very much as if I was there with those people. It's fantastic."

On the LongPen site there's a video of Canadian author Margaret Atwood showing comedian Tracey Ullman how to look into the camera and how to sign Ullman's first book. The funny thing is Tracey Ullman co-wrote a knitting book, and she's using the contraption to sign it, remotely, for Ms. Atwood, who not only claims to have invented the LongPen, but, as Ullman is the first to point out, is "a REAL author who actually graduated from university. I just have a knitting book and I dropped out of school at age 14."

Margaret Atwood says, "We don't think of it as a virtual signing device. We think of it as a pen in another city."

There is money in this. LongPen can be used by any famous person. A soccer star, a movie star, not just authors. The device "represents ground-breaking social network marketing" they say.

Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but at the very least it's fun.

Aired Sunday August 24, 2008 at 10:55 am and Wednesday August 27, 2008 at 1:00 pm

Orders/Information:

Knit 2 Together: Patterns and Stories for Serious Knitting Fun by Mel Clark and Tracey Ullman. Stewart, Tabori & Chang hardcover $27.50. ISBN: 1584795344. Published in 2006.

The LongPen home page: http://www.longpen.com

One of many LongPen videos: http://www.longpen.com/vid-longpeninaction-lp.html#

Margaret Atwood's home page: http://www.owtoad.com/home.html

It's called the Claw Machine, and people have written about it. For example:

http://www.helium.com/items/109290-guide-to-the-claw-machine-how-to-stop-wasting-quarters-and-finally-grab-a-prize

And: http://www.bobandbonnie.com/bob_stories/circus_pizza.html

And this rather amazing crawl-inside-the-claw-machine video: http://view.break.com/536276

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