Livescribe smartpens aren’t just pens. They’re “multimodal computers”. With the launch of Livescribe’s Connect service, multimodal computers get an array of useful new ways to send and share notes and information, Gadget Lab reports.
Livescribe Connect is available today as an update to the “Livescribe Desktop” desktop application and as an app for Echo and Pulse smartpens, including a new 2 GB Echo model additionally launching today.
With Connect, pages can be shared as an interactive “Pencast PDF” that can be accessed by anyone. Anyone with Adobe Reader 10 or higher can view a Pencast PDF, which syncs words written on the page with recorded audio and can be played much like a video recording.
Connect lets user share written notes with a number of digital services and destinations (referred to as Connectors), including Google Docs, Facebook, Evernote, mobile devices, email, and desktop. To send a handwritten page using Connect, user draws a short line and begin writing a one or two word shortcut above it, like “Facebook”, and the smarten recognizes the shortcut name and instructs to tap the pages user would like to include. A double tap completes the function. Current pen models rely on a USB connection to transfer data. CEO Marggraff said that in the future, the company plans to produce wireless smartpen models.
“With Livescribe Connect, it is easy to make your handwritten notes and spoken information digital, searchable, shareable and accessible any time, anywhere with a simple tap of your smartpen,” Marggraff says in the press release.
87% of business professionals still prefer taking notes by hand, according to research from Forrester. And a couple of different studies proved that students who bring their notebooks to class aren’t using them for in-class note-taking so much as instant messaging and browsing “distractive” websites.
The 2 GB Echo smartpen can be purchased for $99.95.
The Livescribe Echo, Livescribe’s latest pen model, was originally introduced in the summer of 2010 with 4 GB and 8 GB models. In October, Livescribe teamed up with Evernote, the cloud-based digital note storing service, for an additional way to share and access handwritten notes. Livescribe was founded in 2007 and began turning heads with the introduction of its Pulse smartpen in 2008.
