Livescribe Smart Pen That Records What You Write

The LiveScribe Pulse Smartpen is a pen that records what you write as well as records audio (at the same time).

It is perfect for a students taking notes. If you go to a university lecture these days, you see many students taking notes with laptops. However that incessant typing can be annoying to the student next to you. Plus you are not able to draw diagrams very well on the computer.

Sometime it is more convenient to have the content in digital form. That way you don't have to carry heavy notebooks around during your study.

Now you can have the best of both worlds. Take notes by pen as you traditionally do. But because you are writing using this smart pen on special dot paper, whatever you write is captured digitally which you can download to your computer later. In addition, it has a built-in audio recorder. So you can record what your instructor is saying.

This is great also in the business world for office collaborations and client meetings.

For instructors, it gives them a new way to teach. You can upload your records on the web. You can see PenCasts of what some people have recorded.

You certainly can not do that with a dumb pen. Below is what a typical dumb pen looks like. It even says so itself. The only thing a dumb pen can do is write.

• Wikipedia calls it a "paper-based computing platform consists of a smartpen, paper, software applications, and developer tools."
• Engadget says it's a "Pen That's a 10".
• It's even been featured on Oprah (here and on YouTube)

It can record audio because it has a built-in microphone.

As you write on special "dot paper", the pen has a camera at its tip which can see the dot grids of the paper. This enables it to know the exact movements of the pen.

When you connect the pen to your computer, you can see exactly what you have written and save it on your computer. So now you don't even need the piece of paper which you had just written on.

The audio that you have recorded can be played back on the computer or from the pen itself. Because the pen also has it own built-in speaker.

The tiny camera can take pictures at 72 images per second. The dot paper comes in notebooks or you can even print it yourself if you have a 600 DPI printer.

The amount or recording that you can take is dependent on the amount of memory on the pen of the various models.

LiveScribe is the company founded by Jim Marggraff that created the SmartPen. You can find more information on its website.

Just some of the Awards that LiveScribe Smart Pen has won are ...

Article written April 2010. Author may receive revenues via the display ads and links in article.