Best-selling author Margaret Atwood waited nervously for the very first Trans-Pacific signing and the Japanese debut of Long Pen technology in Tokyo.

Live video feeds connected her with 600 guests at the Book Lover's Ball in Toronto, a gala fundraiser for that city's library.

Bidding reached $1,800 (about 180,000 yen) for her long distance autograph as she sat in the Canadian Embassy library. The connection failed briefly, then resumed. Relieved, the 68-year old writer waved to the camera and her fans.

Thanking the winner, she flourished a magnetic pen, scribbled onto a computer tablet, then pushed a send button. Seconds later, a robot arm, more than 10,000 kilometers away, inscribed her signature onto the fan's book.

If Canada had national treasures, Atwood would be one. Poet, novelist, essayist, scriptwriter, and illustrator, author of more than 40 books, her work has been translated into 34 other languages, including Japanese. "An ordinary pen is really your brain, your eyes, your arm, your hand and a pen," Atwood held up her magnetic pen. "The Long Pen is just the same except that this part is in a different city making the marks."

The concept seems simple enough. In fact, Atwood got the idea several years ago after signing for a parcel delivery.

"I was really ignorant of technology," she recalls. "I thought the signature was flying through the air."

She wondered why she couldn't do book launches that way. Computer technicians laughed at her until she asked them to create a long-distance signing device. It meant developing software capable of transferring a signature into digital information, sending it across a broadband connection, then translating that into the mechanical actions of a robot arm.

Atwood formed a company, Unotchit, pronounced "You no touch it." Like many software start-ups, it began small.

"It was in my cellar. And part of it now is in a converted garage. The tech guys like to work in garages," Atwood chuckles, "in case anything blows up."

That happened to the second version. "It wrote so quickly that it burst into flames and exploded.

That Long Pen robot arm has been compared to everything from a compact car to long distance surgery with robotics. The difference being that the robot arm has to be able to turn corners, move backwards, apply different pressures, even draw pictures, all as quickly as someone writes. That makes it as precise as the surgery but much quicker. It also gives it the kind of movement that would shake a car apart.

Unlike a fax, a Long Pen signature is an exact copy, done in real time and only once.

"One signature and one only." Atwood smiles, "That means people can't catch your signature and use it to buy refrigerators when you're not there."

Her book-signing in Japan promises a new era, not only in book publishing, but also in celebrity autographs. Through coordinating teleconferencing with book signing, fans will also enjoy the intimacy of real-time conversation with actors, sports figures, and rock stars.

Atwood emphasized the music industry and described the annual Canadian Juno awards. "They have these singers lined up in front of a fence so the fans don't tear them all apart. And they push their CDs through the fence and they sign them."

The Long Pen will change all that at the awards ceremony this April. Singers will sign their fans' CDs at a distance. And the technology will take the whole thing to three different cities.

But the Long Pen also offers tremendous business potential for signing contracts, property sales, and other commercial applications. That seems apparent to IBM which provides their computer tablet. And for over a year, Atwood's company has been partnered with Tandberg, Tokyo for the video conferencing.

"But the best thing of all in the time in which we find ourselves, is it's a very green thing," says Atwood. "You're saving a lot of emissions every time you're not making unnecessary trips."

The Tokyo demonstration was one of several of Long Pen over the last six months. These included a cross-Atlantic book event in September, and several from different North American cities. But the trans-Pacific signing proved the most difficult. The distance was the farthest. And the Internet connection travels through underwater cables of which there are fewer than those on land. Ironically though, these didn't cause the delay.

"The people in Toronto ate too slowly," says Atwood. "Then their Internet connection for the entire building failed. Sometimes that happens just because there's a momentary lack of electricity."

"Japanese people understand technology very well because they've developed a lot of it." She adds, "Sometimes in Canada, it's a little bit harder to convince people, or even explain to people what you're doing."

An added feature of Long Pen technology is that a video record is available of the signing. The person at the robot arm end gets a numbered ticket. They can key it into a website, then download the video for a small fee.

That download fee supports international conservation. Atwood and her husband are honorary presidents of "the Rare Bird Club" of Bird Life International, a group spread over 107 countries.

They came to Japan to promote the Long Pen but also for bird watching in Hokkaido and Okinawa. The trip is Atwood's fourth to Japan where she has a small but growing following. Only a few of her novels have been translated, in part because of their length, some like the Booker Prize-winning The Blind Assassin, running to more than 600 pages.

"I should write really short books," says Atwood. "Better for the translators." (Story and photos by Gregory Strong, Special to the Mainichi)

February 18, 2007

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