New World. The French Calculator That Wants To Shake Up The Giants Of The Sector

As the start of the school and university year approaches, a French start-up is launching a scientific calculator, 100% designed in France, easy to use and open source.

The scientific calculator sector has been dominated for twenty years by two big brands, Casio and Texas Instruments, and not much has happened in the last twenty years in this sector in terms of technological innovation. The young growth NumWorks intends, however, to shake up the sector with an original product and an unusual approach.

Smartphone-inspired ergonomics

While traditional scientific calculators require real learning, including for teachers who often have to swallow large user manuals, the NumWorks calculator is intended to be extremely easy to use. Its designer, the French engineer Romain Goyet, wanted to invent a new product, inspired by today’s intuitive smartphones.

Another originality: this calculator is completely open source, hardware and software, which means that it can be modified and improved by anyone. NumWorks costs around 80 euros. We can only regret that the screen is not touch-sensitive and the display is not of very good quality, compared to a smartphone screen.

Reinvented highlighters and pens

Another high-tech product for the start of the school year: a connected highlighter. This is a small scanner the size of a highlighter pen. It suffices to pass it on a quote, in a book or a textbook, and the sentence is automatically scanned and sent to a computer, in a word processor or an email (around 130 euros).

Finally, the smart pen is a ballpoint pen that transforms everything you write by hand on a sheet of paper into a digital document. The pen can pick up a drawing or text, with character recognition. It is still better to have good, legible handwriting. (around 130 and 150 euros, depending on the model).