Thank goodness there is now a pen for those of us who are attention deficit.  Rather than worrying about whether I have forgotten something, I now can buy a Pulse Pen that will help me remember.  Of course, I have to remember where I put the pen.

Livescribe created the Pulse Pen with a variety of different abilities all of them wonderful for the short term memory impaired.  First, you have the ability to record what you have written on paper to transfer to your computer.  While you write, the Pulse Pen is using an infrared camera housed at the tip of the pen to photograph and store everything you write.

Second, you can record audio at the same time that you are writing.  Then when you touch the graph, word, or phrase that you wrote, the recorded audio from the time you wrote the item, is played back.  Both of these are great for students, lawyers, and other individuals that need to double check their notes against the actual spoken words. 

The Pen incorporates two tiny recorders to keep the sound crisp and a speaker for playback.  The one gigabyte version will record over 100 hours of audio depending on the quality setting.  The two gigabyte version will record over 200 hours of audio. 

A lithium ion battery powers the Pulse Pen and a USB cradle allows everything recorded on the pen to be transferred to computer.  The same synchronicity exists on the computer that exited between the written words and audio when on the paper.

The pen also has a small OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) screen on the barrel.  You can view a menu in the pen to access different functions.  For instance, you can also use the pen to translate the written words on the page, into a variety of languages. 

Right now there are only four languages available including Arabic and Mandarin.  Not only will the pen translate the words, audibly but will also show the spelling of the word or character.  With this pen you can learn how to make the special characters in Chinese or Arabic. Thus translating the English words into something readable in the other languages.

Other modules for the pen are expected to be created, depending on the needs of pulse pen users.  If you need the pen to do something special, let the folks at Livescribe know what you need and they will set about developing it.

The paper used by the Pulse Pen, is regular paper that has an overlay of miniscule black-ink dots that allows the pen to recognize where on the paper you are writing and later referencing.  Currently, you can purchase the paper from Livescribe, but they do plan to provide a downloadable template so that you can print your own.

The pen will come in two models: a one gigabyte version for $149, and a two gigabyte version for $199. 

Hmmmm.  Decisions, decisions, do I buy more than one of the one gigabyte versions so that I will always have one pen when I invariably misplace one, or do I buy the two gigabyte version for more memory support?

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 at 1:19 pm under Technology.

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