Wacom’s Bamboo Pen

Wacom Technology Corp. has introduced Bamboo, an all new family of pen tablets. Bamboo and Bamboo Fun are two distinct pen tablets that provide a natural, personal and creative digital input experience in any home or work environment. See Bamboo and Bamboo highlights at the www.wacom.com/wacombamboo microsite.

Both Bamboo and Bamboo Fun sport elegant designs with increased functionality and ease of use in mind. Four programmable ExpressKeys are situated on the tablet surface to customize commonly used commands, such as "undo" or "copy." A finger-sensitive Touch Ring has been positioned to allow for quick and easy zooming and scrolling. The textured work surface of the tablet provides an intuitive pen-on-paper feel, while the stylish and ergonomically designed pens allow users to experience seemingly unlimited levels of pressure sensitivity, to create variations of pen strokes, from fine lines to bold brush marks. Additionally, Bamboo and Bamboo Fun work elegantly in both Mac and PC (including Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista) environments.

Available to consumers immediately in two sleek sizes and four cool colors, Bamboo Fun provides all the tools needed to have fun exploring digital creativity. Ideal for digital photo enthusiasts or those just wanting to satiate their creative hunger, Bamboo Fun makes it easy to enhance photos and create artwork for scrapbooks, craft projects and slide shows.

Bamboo Fun includes valuable software applications that embrace pen support and deliver greater control when editing photos or creating works of art. These applications include Adobe Photoshop Elements 5 (Elements 4 for Mac users), which make it possible to quickly and easily edit and organize digital photos. Many of the retouching and brush strokes required in Photoshop are accomplished more accurately and rapidly with the use of a pen. Additionally, Nik''s Color Efex Pro 2 GE filtering software allows one to simply select and apply high-quality photographic enhancements with the stroke of a pen. For those with an artistic flair, the natural feel of the Bamboo Fun pen combined with the capabilities of Corel Painter Essentials 3, also included, makes creating great looking artwork easy and fun. When used with a Bamboo Fun pen, Painter Essentials 3 can take on the look and feel of just about any natural art tool and is perfect for creating original digital artwork from photos.

In addition to Wacom's patented cordless, battery-free pen, the Bamboo Fun mouse, uses the same electro-magnetic resonance technology as the pen, offering quick response times and accuracy. Because the mouse has no ball, wires or batteries, users discover a virtually maintenance free experience. When used alternately with a mouse, the Bamboo pen can effectively reduce repetitive motion and increase comfort and control.

Bamboo Fun is offered in two sizes (small and medium) each in black, silver, white or blue.

Bamboo is a rugged and elegant pen tablet designed specifically for the mainstream home or office computer user. Building on Wacom's extensive experience developing pen-based input devices, the small pen tablet, in black only, provides the same hardware features as Bamboo Fun, except for the pressure-sensitive pen eraser and mouse.

Mac OS and Microsoft Windows Vista operating systems introduce significant pen input features to Bamboo users for a faster, easier and more efficient computing experience. For those on a Mac, Inkwell offers a variety of pen input features, allowing one to enter handwritten text anywhere typed text is accepted. Bamboo pen users working on a PC will covet the new Windows Vista-enabled note taking resources, handwriting recognition and time-saving gesture controls. All versions of Windows Vista (except Home Basic) provide complete pen functionality with Bamboo. Select aspects of the Bamboo and Windows Vista pen experience include:

· Note Taking -- Microsoft Journal is an application exclusively for the benefit of Bamboo or those working with another pen tablet, interactive pen display or Tablet PC. Journal simulates a physical notebook, but with all the advantages of a digital medium. The Bamboo pen can be used in Journal to jot notes and capture quick sketches, providing valuable collaboration options for use at home, school and work. Journal also incorporates a powerful search engine that can even locate handwritten content.

· Handwriting Recognition -- Windows Vista introduces intelligent handwriting recognition as a natural supplement to keyboard input. This new recognition technology efficiently and accurately converts a wide variety of handwriting styles into typed text. For example, during a brainstorming session, Bamboo users can scribble down ideas and sketch concepts for collaboration with colleagues. The user has the option to share the information in handwritten form or convert it to typed text.

· Gestures -- There are a variety of pen gestures available within Windows Vista that enable Bamboo users to navigate faster and enhance the overall computing experience. Flicks offers eight customizable gestures with actions determined by the user and Scratch Out allows pen users to delete text automatically with a scratching motion of the pen over the targeted text.

Bamboo also enables new features in recent releases of the most popular software applications. In Microsoft Office 2007, users can now discover new ways to personalize and simplify their work. When running on Windows Vista, Microsoft'
Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and OneNote all support digital mark-up with a Bamboo pen tablet, allowing easy access to digital inking tools for intuitive collaboration. Users can select a pen or highlighter tool to mark-up documents, spreadsheets, presentation slides and e-mail messages.

Pricing and Availability
Available at retail in mid-September, Bamboo is priced at $79.99 (MSRP). Also available in September, Bamboo Fun, offered in two sizes (small, medium) costs $99.99 and $199.99 (MSRP) respectively.

For more information, please contact: www.wacom.com.

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