Pulse Smartpen: Read, Write, Speak and Listen With Your Pen

[DEMO 2008] Today, Livescribe unveils the Pulse Smartpen, a computer embedded in a pen that captures handwriting and simultaneously records audio, synchronizing it to the writing. This is particularly useful for taking notes during a class or a conference! To replay what was recorded while writing a specific word, users simply tap on the word - they can’t miss anything from a presentation. I need to buy one, which would be so useful for tech conferences and interviews!

The Pulse Smartpen is equipped with an ARM 9 processor and a high speed infrared camera with a Dot Positioning System (DPS) that works with the Dot paper Notebook; the micro dots printed on the paper tell the Pulse Smartpen where a user is writing or taping. The Paper Replay Notebook cost around the same price as a regular notebook, and users can print their own dot paper for free on their personal printers.

The pen comes with a 3D recording headset especially designed for far-field recording, each earbud has an embedded microphone to record in large room or noisy environment. The goal is to record exactly what’s coming into both ears.

Each registered user has 250 MB of online storage and can share notes and audio as interactive Flash movies or PDF files. Users can share with the LiveScribe community, selected contacts or other sites like Facebook, and text and audio transcription services will be available online.

Livescribe is also launching the Livescribe Developer Program to invite programmers to develop applications for the Pulse Smartpen. Some applications will be available soon from www.livescribe.com: handwriting and audio conversion into digital text, Spanish translator, games, books, and special education tools for visually-impaired people.

The Pulse Smartpen comes in two versions: the 1GB model with 100 hours of audio storage and 16000 pages of digital notes, priced at $149, the 2GB model doubles the storage and cost $199. It will be available in March and the Apple version will ship in September. This article will be updated with the link to the demonstration video in the next days.

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