The Kickstarter campaign\u2019s backers noticed that none of the materials provided by Nuwa on the campaign page shows the product actually in use. Image Credits:<\/strong>\u00a0Kickstarter \/ Nuwa Pen<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThe difference is that we have more control and flexibility with the larger version, particularly regarding camera development. As for financial risks, we did face some uncertainties early in the project, but our showing at CES helped to mitigate those. We\u2019re now adding to our funding through Kickstarter to extend Nuwa Pen\u2019s future. In this same line of thought, we also needed to update our delivery timeline, which was more in line with our development. We now aim to ship the first batch in December and the Kickstarter batch in March, which is later than initially expected since the miniaturization was a challenge we\u2019ve managed to overcome,\u201d Tuinier said in the statement. \u201cWe have completed most of the complex tasks and developed a functional pipeline in controlled environments. The development has been accelerating, which helps us to predict our timeline with much more accuracy. So yes, the product will function as well, as shown in the video. The key challenge we\u2019re working on is the time needed to get the embedded software more compact.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team provided a photo of the version of the pen that was used to create the results shown in the Kickstarter video, and asked that I not share it more widely, citing that \u201cit exposes our MCU [Microcontroller], which isn\u2019t public information.\u201d The photo shows a pen with a ribbon cable running to a box the size of a deck of cards, which is then connected to a laptop with a USB cable.<\/p>\n

I also asked the Nuwa Pen team to record a video that shows the current version of its pen. A couple of days later, the team provided the below video, which appears to show a prototype of the pen running wirelessly and connecting to the app. It briefly shows the handwriting as captured, and shows that the company has made significant progress since I tried the device myself in April. It appears that the pen is now able to handle multiple pen strokes, and that the capture is robust enough to recognize the pen strokes as the word \u201chello.\u201d It is still a ways away from being as accurate as is shown in the Kickstarter video.<\/p>\n