If you’re not in education (or a parent to kids in school) you may not have heard of this new gadget yet: Interactive whiteboards. In short, this is a board onto which a presenter can project a computer screen. It then allows you to manipulate what’s on the screen using a special pen, stylus or even your finger.

While the most popular application is in classrooms, these are also used in business meetings, by professional level sports coaches and in broadcasting studios. Interactive whiteboards don’t just make standard projectors obsolete, they also mean we can phase out those giant pads of paper I remember from my school days and later brainstorming sessions.

For most consumers however, this technology isn’t really that relevant. These boards are only useful in a home if you want to take showing off vacation slideshows to a brand new level. For small business owners however, these could come in handy but it’s hard to justify such a large expense.

And that’s where today’s gadget comes in.  For about a quarter of the price, a company called Interphase will be manufacturing a “pen” that lets you turn any surface into an interactive whiteboard. It comes with a little projector that you can use to turn any wall into a screen and then use the pen as a mouse to navigate or a pen to mark that screen itself. At any point, you can take a picture of the screen and store it in the pen’s memory.

Not only is this cheaper than the full interactive white board, but it’s also much more portable. If you are a freelancer or own a small business and have to present yourself to clients, this could be a great way to make a very professional impression.

In the meantime however, this gadget is still in the preorder stage so we can’t know yet what it feels like to use and if it really lives up to the potential.