Information capture is a very desirable and important function in portable computers. The "Multimedia Notebook" is a portable tool for capturing information in multimedia format, which includes photos, voice, and handwritten memos. Recent portable units, sometimes called PDA (Personal Digital Assistants) or Communicators, have PIM (Personal Information Manager) software and some communication facility. Their purpose is to enlarge the desktop environment to follow the user outside the office. This is one application of portable equipment, however we felt that hand-held equipment can also be used for more general information capture. In the past, information capture was limited, because people had to carry bulky equipment to the information source. Recent portable computers that have the capability to handle still and motion pictures, voice, and handwritten drawings allow the implementation of more information capture capabilities. Capture of handwritten notes has already been implemented on portable equipment like PDAs. However, this application doesn't make the most of its potential. We feel that the Multimedia Notebook should integrate handwritten memos with pictures and voice. The advantage is that users can capture what they watch and hear easily in a variety of media for later review. The information in each medium complements the others. When arranging the recorded information, it is easy to use each medium efficiently. We have examined the human interface and designed it for user-friendliness and to be comparable to pen and paper. The prototypes also have a capture buffer which can operate continuously to capture voice and pictures that would otherwise be lost because of the user's delay in starting to record.

Broadband multimedia information environments are part of the next big advance in communications and computer technology. The use of multimedia infrastructures in offices is becoming very important. This paper deals with a service concept and human interfaces based on a paper metaphor. The proposed service offers the advantages of paper and eliminates the disadvantages. The power of multimedia's expressiveness, user interaction, and hypermedia technology are key points of our solution. We propose a system configuration for implementing the service/human interface.