In terms of communication the telephone is surely the mother of all modern invention – the first true instant message, shrinking the distances between people to near irrelevance. But even a century after its invention, and as ingrained in our lives as it is, a telephone conversation is still not a very natural experience. On the telephone we can’t illustrate and emphasise with gestures (though occasionally we find ourselves trying), we can’t pick up a pencil and sketch something in seconds that might otherwise elude explanation.

The digital age has brought us lots of wonderful tools to bridge the gap, such as webcams, screen sharing, and online meeting rooms. But a virtual meeting invariably begins with a time consuming process of registering accounts or remembering passwords, exchanging addresses and sending invitations, and so we tend to reserve these for more formal arrangements.

We wanted to build a tool that could reclaim some of the power of visual communication and enable us to talk more naturally. A tool that could be used impromptu (even mid-conversation) without distraction, that doesn’t care how your network is set up, or what firewall you’re using. A tool so simple that our Mums could use it. Honestly, those were our requirements. And so I’d like to announce the public beta of Woobius Eye.

Woobius Eye: As convenient as pen and paper

Woobius Eye lets you point and draw on a shared canvas as convenient as pen and paper. It’s firewall friendly, platform friendly (almost, we’re still ironing out some bugs), requires no setup, and you don’t need to register. Oh, and it’s free!

To learn more, please take a few moments to watch our introductory video.

Woobius Eye is by no means a finished project. It’s a work in progress, an experiment if you will. But we love it already and use it extensively in house (Bob’s Mum uses it too!), and we’d love for you to try it out and give us your feedback so we can make it better.

We also have plans to go mobile, with an iPhone app already in development and Android to follow. If you have an iPhone and you would like to take part in the beta programme, please go to the Woobius Eye homepage and click the “Register for interest” link.

Enjoy, and let us know how you use Woobius Eye!