My brother ordered two of these pens when they were first available from the manufacturer. His thinking apparently was that he would have a backup should he ever lose one. Quickly realizing that he might have over-ordered, he offered one to me to try.There were a lot of reasons I was not enthusiastic about his offer. The first was that unlike my brother, I actually do lose pens from time to time, even expensive ones. So if I lost this thing I would owe my brother money. Second, I am a Mac enthusiast and the desktop software for a Mac platform will not be available until the end of 2008. Finally, the necessity of the product escaped me.
But being a toy lover I put aside my objections and accepted his loan. A few weeks later I was calling customer support on a desktop issue (I installed it on my only Windows computer, a Toshiba tablet). The problem was a software glitch, since in reality the pen was still in beta. The customer service rep solving the problem asked if it was registered in my name. I assured her it was. I then told her that my brother had bought the pen but that he was never getting it back. I could hear my statement relayed around the support department where it was greeted with shouts and laughter. They knew. I was a convert. I had drunk the Kool-aid and was forever theirs.
Okay so what do I use it for? I take it to hearings and depositions (I am a lawyer, remember?). These are public events under Florida law and there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.This is important since the pen doesn't just record the strokes of the pen, it records everything being said. And it records it very well. Here is the cool part, touch a word in your notes and you will hear whatever was happening at that time. My favorite demonstration to date is to touch a word from a contested trial where I got to ask a witness if he had ever told people that he spoke to the dead and that they spoke back to him. The guy nearly came across the table at me, a point also recorded. Now an aside to lawyers, law students and pro se litigants-do not ever ask someone this question unless you have an email from the witness attesting to his ability to commune with the formerly alive.
The recording capacity of this pen is astonishing. The manufacturer suggests that the 2GB pen will hold 200 hours of audio. I have no reason to doubt it, since constant use has barely tapped its capacity.
When the pen is uploaded to the desktop software (currently Windows only) images of the notes and the audio are loaded into the computer. From there it can be uploaded to an online site where it is Mac accessible. For now this satisfies my Mac needs at least till the end of the year.
You need special paper to take advantage of the upload features. Fortunately, the supplies are reasonably priced and available online. However the notebook supplied with the pen is most generous.
There are lots of other features in the pen. It is possible to draw a keyboard and play notes (musical notes) on it. My daughter, a music ed major, particularly enjoys this. There is even a cute animation demo built in whose 3-D sound as heard through the earbuds is astonishing and mildly amusing.
So who could use this pen other than trial lawyers? Students seem to be a logical group. Perhaps physicians and nurses could use it. Did the patient really say he had a condition or did he say something else? Livescribe needs to produce industry specific paper for just such uses, or to allow outside vendors to create it.
This product will revolutionize the workplace in ways that we cannot now predict. All we can predict is that it will prove to be one of the most significant technologies of this decade in the same way the personal computer was in the 1980s. Click the"Buy" button now. You will not regret it.
BREAKING NEWS
The Mac Desktop (not the Beta) promised for the first quarter of 2009 will be available on 11/24/08 for download at . It promises certain enhancements over the original windows software and the original beta released in November, 2008,
"The Mac version of Livescribe Desktop also offers two additional features not available in the Windows version. First, Mac users will have the ability to export their recordings into AAC audio files. Mac users can also export their notes as PDF files directly from the Desktop application. All current and new users of the Pulse smartpen can use Pulse with Mac computers for free. "
Addendum: As of February 2009 a full version of the Livescribe Desktop for Mac is available for download free to registered users. The Mac Desktop is fully functional and comparable but not identical to the Windows desktop. The Mac version lacks one major feature at this time-the ability to print the special paper found in the Windows version. Some users have reported that they are able to print paper using the Mac software and Adobe so this may not be that important an omission. Printing also does require a color laser printer at 600 dpi, the feature may be of limited utility in any event. On the plus side the Mac version allows the audio capture to be saved in AAC format which makes it playable on standard CDs. Third party software which converts handwriting to text is not currently offered for Mac.
Because the file formats are proprietary, you cannot load the noisy files into audio processing software to filter out the noise or amplify the speaker's voice. The need for the headphones (which serve as microphones) makes the pen obtrusive in a corporate environment, where one may want to save audio recordings of meetings while taking notes.
The pen has a built in microphone, but it is useless in a large room. It is often recommended that one use the headphones (wearing them around one's neck), but in normal environments with air conditioning or computers nearby, the only thing you'll record is noise.
The pen does faithfully record the notes you make if you use the company's special notebooks. These contain an array of dots that tell the pen where it's located on the page. This information is stored as you write. When you upload the pen's contents to your computer, an image of what you wrote is regenerated. This is of course a neat trick, but you have to use their file format and user interface, and I find it is not sufficiently flexible. Not being able to use standard file formats like mp3 and pdf is a real nuisance. Apparently you can upload your files to the company's web site and they'll convert them to pdf for you, but what if your notes contain private or proprietary information? And even if it's just your math notes, who wants the hassle?
This device may be suitable for some students if the lecture room and level of ambient noise are appropriate for the pen's limited ability to capture clean sound. This is not a trivial problem, because in its current state, unless you're recording in an ideal environment, the noise will make it impossible to hear the lecture when you play it back. You do not notice these faint background noises most of the time, but that's essentially all the pen will record.
I gave up on the pen and frankly don't even know where it is at the moment. Too bad, because I got the one with 2GB of memory along with about a dozen of their special notebooks. Now I just use them with an ordinary pen and record my lectures using a digital recorder I got from Ramsay Electronics. Its sound quality is perfect, regardless where I sit, and it can record in any format I choose.
I am disappointed in the unbalanced reviews I've read about this pen. One has to wonder if some of the more enthusiastic ones are from the company itself. Likewise, I found reviews online that were so slick, detailed, and positive that they had to have come from the pen maker. I have never written a review before but after reading reviews that gave this device unqualified praise, I felt it my duty to warn other potential purchasers--let the buyer beware.
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The pen does what it says but if you have used the Leapfrog Fly Fusion pen which is the company the founder came from you expect that it will convert your writing to text but it doesn't.The company promises to do this but has not delivered on their promise and since the pen has been out since at least April I feel it is long overdue. They could give one access to the digital audio which then would enable the user of the pen to use another text conversion program -but they don't or won't.
The other problem is the tease of the apps like language translator which the pen does but only as demo so far.
What the pen does do it does it fantastically so if you are a student of someone just wanting to have a verbal recording of something and the ability to take notes that associate the recording so that it is easy to find what you want right away it does that very well.
The problem is that all digital recording devices do this too and also allow text conversion. So... if you don't need to take notes to find your recording places then the pen will be less functional than a digital recording device and perhaps cheaper and more efficient.
I will hang onto mine for a bit longer but I need the text conversion or the pen is useless to me if they don't get their act together on their promises I will just sell mine for whatever I can get and go back to using my cheaper fly fusion pen.
If they get the text conversion together and add real apps instead of teasers then this product will be a real winner and useful for a wide range of people.
Read Best Reviews of Livescribe 2GB Pulse Smartpen (APA-00002) Here
For folks like me who spend a lot of time in meetings and take a lot of notes: get one of these things and fast. Day 1: I unpacked it, played wiht it a little, and that evening tried it in a small conference room taking notes on a speaker-phone conference call with someone in China. His english wasn't great, and I found that going back and being able to listen (over and over) to *exactly* the place I didn't understand was a huge help. Day 2: went to an "all hands" meeting in the cafeteria with 5 different speakers. I used the headphones around my neck (as recommended), set the microphone for auditorium, and took notes exactly as I ususally do. Afterwards, I was simply amazed at how much more information I was able to retrieve, and quickly. An hour later, I'm in a medium sized conference room with 2 other people, using just the mic on the pen--again, fabulous results. Next meeting: a one-on-one, and I'm totally digging this thing. (as I said, I attend a LOT of meetings.)If you ever have used a voice recorder, or have wanted to use a voice recorder, this is the gizmo for you. The ability to "instantly" recall anything you heard is a huge productivity gain. Everyone I've showed it to at work wants one.
The USB cradle (with cool magnetic catch to hold the pen easily) works nicely to charge the device quickly. I'd give the software interface a "B"--it's not bad, but a little awkward. If you think iTunes is logical, you might like this; I'm not quite in that camp. But that's just the UI side. What the software DOES is pretty amazing: plug in your pen, and all your notes appear on the screen, just as you wrote them. You can click through them and hear the conversation, but you can also SEARCH for words you've written. This works amazingly well, even on crappy rushed-meeting-fast-note handwriting. wow.
Recommendations: buy the 2GB version, and get a few of the small black notebooks--they're nice. Note: watch the series numbers on the notebooks--if you buy several, make sure you buy them with different series numbers. This is probably the only "gotcha" with this product, but it is much less limiting than it sounds. Then, snoop around your collection of eye-glass boxes for one that can hold the pen, the earphones, adn the USB cradle. I found an old fountain pen box that works great, so I can throw everything in my pack and I'm ready to rock.
This is an outstanding product at a reasonable price, that will make you more productive from the first time you use it...
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We at Hubbard Engineering love our new Smart Pen because it gives us a handwritten index to audio recordings of our meetings and classes.You should know first of all that you have to use the special provided paper. We ordered extra notebooks along with our pen purchase.
Here are some nice features we appreciate:
1. Surprisingly enough, the size of the pen is satisfactory, on the verge of too big without quite being too big.
2. The docking cradle is magnetized, which draws the pen in and holds it like a tractor beam.
3. The software is online. No CD included. So we know we are getting the latest version.
Little quirks we feel should be addressed include the following:
1. The pen or the ink insert should have a cap. Ideally, there would be a small cap for the ink insert that would allow it to function as a non-writing stylus. There would also be a larger cap for the body of the pen. Livescribe may have decided a cap stored at the back end of the pen over the power button and the led screen would be seen as a design flaw, but that's not a good enough reason to omit a cap.
2. The removable/replaceable ink insert is interchangeable with a non-writing stylus. These inserts are too hard to remove by hand. There needs to be an easier way in the middle of a meeting or class or study session to quickly change inserts. Livescribe should either provide a release button or ease up the pressure of the internal retainer clip.
3. The docking, transfer, and session management software (as of October 2008) desperately needs session export, network deployment, and pen sharing capabilities. The software as it is designed works very smoothly as long as you don't own two computers, change computers, or need to share your pen with a project team. I should say that Livescribe does provide an online session sharing site. But unless you buy a subscription, the 1 GB storage is only half the capacity of the 2 GB Smartpen memory. We haven't tried the service yet because we don't envision it meets our needs. We want to make page-by-page exports (at least partial) to PDF, MP3, PNG, JPG, Flash, and image-mapped HTML. And we want to be able to open and save sessions from diverse network locations.
We will happily keep our Smartpen busy. And we will look forward to major software improvements.
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