School is coming back. For some it’s already started. Times have changed  however, and now you need more than a pencil and notebook to start the year. You still need a notebook but increasingly you have to add a computer to the mix. Which is strange because most text are still in paper form. The ScanMarker Pen Scanner helps you bridge the gap from the physical world to the digital one.

The Pen Scanner is used like a highlighter. You run it over passages, just as you would a neon yellow marker. Only instead of marking the page with a glowing streak of ink, it scans the words and ports them to your computer, ready for you to use and reference on your computer screen.

It attaches via USB so you have to be fairly close to your computer, no studying in the garden if you use a desktop PC. The pen automatically transfers the scan into workable texts for you via some inluded OCR software, which is pretty cool for college students who have essay heavy classes. Instead of retyping long quotes for your papers, you can literally copy and paste it in. Genius. The ScanMarker Pen Scanner is $79.99.