Livescribe aims to give handwriting a new lease of life

Stuart Corner
Saturday, 20 February 2010 16:37

Your IT - Home IT

In the world of connected computers, netbooks, laptops, touch screen smartphones etc it may seem like the days of communication by handwritten text and drawing are numbered, but US based Livescribe, developer of the Pulse Smartpen is determined to give hand-written communication a whole new lease of life.

Its first product, which has been around for about 18 months, is a pen incorporating a digital voice recorder and the Anoto smart paper technology. This combination enables anyone taking notes from speech to record the conversation and synchronise the recording with their notes. Touching the pen on the special Anoto paper alongside the handwriting plays back whatever was being said when the note was taken.

The recording along with a facsimile of the pages of associated notes can be uploaded to a PC or Mac for later browsing and archiving and to a web site for sharing. The company, however has plans to move well beyond this core application.

Livescribe CEO, Jim Marggraff told iTWire. "We are not a pen company. The way I think of Livescribe is that we enhance the capture, the access to and the sharing of information. And you will see us come out with a continuous stream of improvements to those things."

A major development currently on the company's roadmap is to add wireless connectivity to the Smartpen. This has the potential of opening up a whole range of applications, according to Marggraff.

"We want you to be able to write 'buy' and '[book title]' and get a message back '[book title] available on Amazon.com $19.95. Sign to buy now.' And you would just sign your name to buy it."

CONTINUED