The present invention pertains to an input system for inputting information from a user, the input device system including at least one sheet of a writing medium having a unique identifier located thereon, a stylus input device for writing on the writing medium and emitting one or more signals, a detector for detecting said unique page identifier and stroke information from said emitted signal and local storage for storing said detected stroke information, in association with the unique identifier of said writing medium.

A magnetic field position and orientation measurement system contains, confines and re-directs the magnetic field from one or more transmitters such that the fields are attenuated in areas outside of the operating volume in areas where metallic objects are commonly found. A thin barrier made of a highly permeable material such as ferrite or mumetal is placed on top of a conductive plate. The thickness of the permeable layer is from 0.01 inches to 0.25 inches while the conductive plate, preferably made of an aluminum alloy, may preferably be from 3/16 of an inch to 1/4 inch in thickness. On top of the permeable barrier, a rhombic three axis transmitter is placed. In the preferred embodiment, the transmitter consists of a PC board carrying the transmitter. PC boards having thicknesses varying from 0.03125-0.125 inches may be employed. Thus, the entire "stack" including the transmitter, the permeable barrier and the conductive plate may only be from 1/2 inch to 5/8 of an inch in thickness. The permeable barrier may have a flat, planar configuration. Alternatively, it may be made to resemble, in cross-section, a cake pan having a flat central region with uplifted peripheral edges. Alternatively, the permeable barrier may have a generally flat configuration with peripheral edges that taper outwardly from the top surface thereof to the bottom surface thereof with the taper making an angle with the bottom surface in the range of, preferably, 30.degree. to 85.degree..

A bracket for shielding a capacitive touch screen from external noise arising from stray capacitance comprises upper and lower complementary rectangular conductive metal shield elements which are joined together inside a housing with a transparent touch screen retained therebetween. The upper shield element is provided with a large central aperture so that the touch screen is accessible to a user. The lower shield element is also provided with a large central aperture to enable a display, such as an LCD, to be viewed through the transparent touch screen. The display is secured to the lower shield element with an insulating member interposed between the display and the lower shield element. The shielding bracket provides a full shield for the upper, lower and edge surfaces of the touch screen to prevent the capacitance of a hand resting upon the housing from interfering with the touch screen.

A magnetically shielded fluorescent lamp ballast case for shielding human beings from the negative effects of magnetic fields emanating from a fluorescent lamp ballast is made of a ferromagnetic alloy, or lined on the inside or the outside of the fluorescent lamp ballast case with such foil alloys. The ferromagnetic alloy for the magnetically shielded fluorescent lamp ballast case is a soft magnetic material. The soft magnetic material is a metal alloy containing one or more than one of the following elements: iron, nickel, or cobalt. The fluorescent lamp ballast case can be made of steel or aluminum, and lined on the inside or the outside of the ballast case with a ferromagnetic foil alloy which is attached to the steel or aluminum by adhesive. The magnetically shielded fluorescent lamp ballast case for a fluorescent lamp ballast can be employed for core coil fluorescent lamp ballasts or for electronic solid state fluorescent lamp ballasts. There is a substantial attenuation of the magnetic component of the electromagnetic field, particularly of frequencies up to about 100 Kilohertz.

A system and method for processing and managing electronic copies of handwritten notes are provided. The system includes a processor for processing the handwritten notes to generate the electronic copies, with each electronic copy associated with a respective identifier corresponding to at least one set of the respective handwritten notes, in which the identifiers facilitate the management of the electronic copies. The system includes an electronic notepad and can also include devices operatively connected to the electronic notepad for operating with the electronic notepad to receive, manage, merge, and/or display the electronic copies from the electronic notepad.