All-in-one Pulse Smartpen: handwriting and audio recording

All of us attending lectures wish to possess such a device that would be able to store and reproduce the information given by professors. Of course it's possible to use a simple voice recorder for this purpose, yet it will not help you much, because both aural and visual memories should be involved in the process of memorizing in order to ensure its high efficiency. But now you can stop worrying about this because Livescribe has just presented its new product. Pulse Smartpen represents a pen with embedded computer that captures handwriting and simultaneously records audio, synchronizing it to the writing.

Users simply tap on the word to replay what was recorded while writing this word. The Pulse Smartpen has 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 costs 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. Moreover 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. Livescribe is also launching the Livescribe Developer Program to invite programmers to develop applications for the Pulse Smartpen. Some applications will be available soon, 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 /9, the 2GB model doubles the storage and /$ 199 USD. It will be available in March and the Apple version will ship in September.

Thus, this gadget will perfectly fit to students and business people as well. Yet, despite the fact that it's a very useful device, some may be enough happy with the option of writing with a simple pen.