A pen to link paper to digital

Advertising Age recently featured an interesting video clip of Livescribe’s CEO Jim Marggraff demonstrating the company’s Pulse Smartpen. The Smartpen looks like an ordinary pen but also includes a processor, 1-4 GB of storage, speaker, audio jack, microphone, camera, OLED display, and USB connector. When the pen is used with special paper, the camera tracks the movement of anything that is written or drawn while recording audio. The audio can be played back later by touching the pen to portions of the notes. The notes can also be emailed via a link, shared on Facebook, or embedded directly on the web. This is a really interesting concept and one that college students may find particularly useful. At the end of the video, Marggraff also discusses some interesting new ideas that the company is working on including: interactive business cards, interactive print magazines, and the ability to make purchases via the pen. The video is worth a watch to hear the description of these ideas.