Livescribe Pulse Pen
Today I am writing about a pen I am completely blown away by. I have seen a couple of my teachers using it and I have had the opportunity to try it out. Now this isn’t any ordinary pen, it is capable of recording sound as you write (synced to each actual word – I’ll explain later) and capturing all pen strokes in a digital jpeg format which can be easily loaded to your personal computer, page by page as in the notebook. I have included a link to this pen, called Livescribe Pulse, which can be found at any Target.
The functionality and ease of use of this piece of technology is what shocked me the most. One simply writes down whatever they want and all sounds are recorded. The amazing part is, to replay the sounds you just touch the pen on any word and the sounds from that point in time are played. The supplied “dot” paper – paper with unique patterns of finely meshed (very unnoticeable) dots – serve as the digital timestamp for the pen to recognize when in play-back mode. This “dot” paper can be purchased in pad format for not much more than ordinary paper or printed out for free!
My immediate reaction to seeing this technology was regret; regret I did not possess something like this while in college! For a student taking notes for six years of college, it is very tough to organize all of your work for later reference amongst yearly moves and constant life changes. However, with this pen, a student can just dock it their computer after class and load all their notes in jpeg format onto their computer. Don’t forget that they can hear exactly what the teacher was saying when each word was written as well. Dismissing all catastrophic computer crashes, I can’t think of an easier way to archive all the expensive knowledge transmitted during class hours. I believe this the next best gift to a digital camera, if not better, for any new college student.
I am speaking from an engineering perspective where notes often include drawings and are not structured like other disciplines where typing notes is much simpler. However, disregarding the obvious health benefits to hand writing (http://drbenkim.com/nervous-system-healthy.html), I think there is a clear advantage to handwritten notes for the purpose of knowledge retention; which makes this pen a necessity for everyone. So regardless of who you are, check this amazing invention out. The applications for the Livescribe Pulse pen go far beyond college students (therapists also immediately come to mind).
It’s a shame the marketing efforts for this product have been non-existent. In an age when colleges are giving all incoming students iPhones to integrate with classes (http://www.acu.edu/news/2008/080225_iphone.html) the enormous academic market only serves as a small example for the immense potential of this invention.