Review : Pulse SmartPen from LiveScribe
From time to time, you come across technologies or gadgets that seem almost magical. It doesn’t happen quite that often these days because we’re totally used to having very advanced technology in just about everything but the Pulse SmartPen from LiveScribe really is one of those things that will impress just about anyone you give a demo to.
So what is it? Well for one thing it’s a $150 ($200 CAD) pen with an infrared camera, a microphone, an LCD screen and — of course — a USB port. Oh, and it also writes on paper if that’s your thing.
More seriously though, the PULSE SmartPen uses special paper (with a unique arrangement of micro dots printed on it so the pen knows where and on what page it is) and its infrared camera to record everything you write. When you plug it in to the Mac or PC, you automatically get a digital copy of what you wrote. The desktop software that comes bundled with the pen then allows you to search through your notes and it does a pretty good job of recognizing handwriting. On Windows, a companion software that you can buy for 30$ will allow you to transcribe your written words into text but that software isn’t available on the Mac so far.
I said earlier the pen had a microphone on it. At the bottom of each piece of paper you will find a serie of buttons. 3 of them, Record, Stop and Pause allow you to control the microphone. If you record while you are writing, not only will you get what you write, you’ll also get the audio of what was said when you were writing it. Because the pen always knows exactly where it is on the page at all time (thanks to the micro-dots on the paper), one click either in the desktop software or anywhere on the piece of paper with the pen will launch an audio playback of what was being said when you wrote that word. Depending on which model you get, you can record either 100 hours or 200 hours of audio with the pen. Once filled, you’ll have to delete some audio, but it doesn’t matter because everything is archived on your computer.
The pen also has a few applications built in and more scheduled to come out later. Write the word “CALC” anywhere on a LiveScribe paper and the calculator launches. Then write your equation (say “28×7=” and the LCD displays the result. Launch the piano application, draw a simple panio and start playing music.
The pen has been on sale for a few months but the Mac version of the software just came out in December and is currently in public beta. There are still a few things missing on the Mac side of things (you can’t yet print your own paper on Mac, but that’s coming soon according to the developers).
When I ordered the pen, I was convinced it would barely work (if at all) but I’ve been very impressed with it so far. When I demoed it at the Montreal Mac User Group, everyone in the room was really impressed and when I showed it to people at work no less than 5 people bought one the same day. I gotta say, I’m loving it though I do wish it were Bluetooth and the Mac desktop software still needs some work. Since it does host a USB interface and an infrared camera it’s not the most comfortable pen you’ll ever use, but it’s light and isn’t too big to feel uncomfortable.
And when you’re done with all the built-in apps, head over to Penlet.com to get more games and apps for your pen. Right now the site is just getting started, but a community is starting to build around the technology and an SDK is available to build your own app.
