VersaPen: An adaptable, modular and multimodal I/O pen

While software often allows user customization, most physical devices remain mainly static. We introduce VersaPen, an adaptable, multimodal, hot-pluggable pen for expanding input capabilities. Users can create their own pens by stacking different input/output modules that define both the look and feel of the customized device. VersaPen offers multiple advantages. Allowing in-place interaction, it reduces hand movements and avoids cluttering the interface with menus and palettes. It also enriches interaction by providing multimodal capabilities, as well as a mean to encapsulate virtual data into physical modules which can be shared by users to foster collaboration. We present various applications to demonstrate how VersaPen enables new interaction techniques.