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Happy Wednesday Pulse fans! Looking for a quick, mid-week read?

February 3rd, 2010

According to this article, U.S. Representative James McGovern visited Dean College in Franklin, Mass. on Monday to see how the college was using $150,000 in federal funds he helped secure to pay for upgrades in curriculum, technology, faculty and instruction. During a tour of the campus’ Library Learning Commons, a student named Karl McGrotty demoed Pulse to McGovern, who was impressed and said he could see Pulse helping students learn “coursework and real-life skills.” The college’s president, Paula Rooney, also chimed in – saying that Pulse “contributes to skills that set students apart when they hit the job market.”

We couldn’t agree more with these comments! Many thanks to James for his work to get new technologies onto college campuses, and to Karl and Paula for spreading the word about Pulse!

Pulse stars in UVa efficacy studies

January 29th, 2010

Some cool news, Pulse fans. UVa Today (published by the University of Virginia) reported faculty and students in the university’s Engineering School are studying how the Pulse smartpen can be used for distance learning, electronic grading and interactive class materials.

We’ve been working closely with UVa over the last few months to help scope out the projects and train faculty. The data the university is collecting is incredibly important for Pulse’s future development and we’re thrilled by some of the initial feedback we’ve received. Check out these quotes from the article:

• “Right out of the box, the smartpen has some very exciting applications that could be of use to our students and faculty.” – Stephanie Moore, director of engineering instructional design for the Engineering School

• “For math-heavy classes, typing notes on a computer doesn’t work very well. Equations take a long time to type into a computer, and graphs or diagrams are even more cumbersome. So, with a computer tablet, those sorts of tasks are easier to do. With one of these pens used as an input device, it could take the place of a tablet and be substantially less expensive.” – Sheila Warren, doctoral student

Several of UVa’s studies will wrap-up at the end of this year, with others being conducted over a two or three year period. We have several other studies in the works – more on them in future posts, so stay tuned!

Where were you during Livescribe’s Developer Day?

January 28th, 2010

In honor of our Global Developer Competition, we hosted a Developer Day event on January 13th at Mountain View’s Computer History Museum. We saw an excellent turnout and such great interest in developing apps for the Pulse smartpen, that we’ve extended our competition deadline to March 13th. You know what that means—get your great ideas and applications for Pulse in gear and enter our competition!

For all of your math enthusiasts, here’s a breakdown of our successful Developer Day earlier this month:

Total attendees: 93

In-person attendees: 49 (Some notables: James Gosling, Brad Carvey [Yes, Dana Carvey’s brother], Barry McQuain, Peter Hirshberg

Virtual attendees: 26

Media Attendees: 4 (Application Developer Trends/Redmond Developer News, VentureBeat, eWeek, Silicon Valley Business Journal)
Livescribe staff attendees: 14

Number of wine bottles the marketing department later consumed to celebrate Livescribe’s success: 3

Want more Developer Day goodies? Watch our Developer Slide Show here.

Livescribe is at National Title I Conference in Washington DC!

January 20th, 2010

Starting tomorrow, Livescribe will be at National Title I Conference in Washington DC. Dedicated to educators, the Title I Conference is a four-day conference with over a hundred sessions offered by recognized experts and new voices in education theory, practice, and reform.

We’ll be exhibiting from January 21-24. If you’re at Title I, stop by and visit us! For more information, please visit the Title I Conference website.

New Smartpen Features: Quick Launch and Flick & Scrub

January 8th, 2010

With the launch of our Application Store beta, you can now download free and paid applications on your smartpen. For our users who want to quickly find and launch their applications on their smartpen, there are a couple new shortcuts in version 2.1.1 you should know about:

Flicking is basically a swiping motion with the tip of your smartpen. Quickly drag and lift the tip of your smartpen, and watch your menu items and apps quickly scroll on the display.

Scrubbing is like drawing a solid line. Draw a line from top to bottom (or left to write). Without lifting the tip of your smartpen, retrace your line and see your menu items and apps scroll up or down in the same direction/speed as your smartpen.

Jump to the videos to see how it works!

Quick Launch allows you to jump to an application, and quickly launch it.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

How to use Quick Launch:

1. Double-tap on the center of a Nav Plus. A double-tap is two taps in quick succession.

2.Your smartpen will display an asterisk in the Main Menu.

3.Within three seconds, write the first few letters of the name of the application you want to launch.

For example, write “Pi” and you’ll see the smartpen auto-fill the rest of the application name. In this case, it will jump to “Piano.”

If you just write the letter P, your smartpen will display the first app that begins with the letter P. From there, you can scroll to the app you want by tapping on the up/down arrows of the Nav Plus.

NOTE: Your smartpen has a predictive text feature, so it’ll display the first app that matches what you’re writing. As soon as you see the app you want, you can stop writing.

4.Once you find the app you’re looking for, right-tap on the Nav Plus to launch the app.
TIP: Tap on your letter or phrase (example: “Pi”) to re-launch the app anytime.

Flick and Scrub allows you to quickly scroll through menu items and apps with the tip of your smartpen.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

How to use Flick and Scrub:

1.Navigate to a list of vertical menu items, such as Main Menu or one of its submenus, such as Applications or Settings.

2. Flip to a new piece of dot paper. Press the tip of your smartpen down for one-half (1/2) second.

3. Wait until you hear a short beep, then without lifting your smartpen tip off the paper, draw a horizontal or vertical line.

4.Your smartpen will automatically recognize this line as a Flick and Scrub control.

5.Retrace the line to scroll through the menu items or app display text. The display text will scroll either up and down (for vertical controls) or left and right (for horizontal controls), depending on the direction in which you drew the control.

TIP: After you have created a Flick and Scrub control, you can use it at any time for scrolling. Just trace over the line to activate it (just like how you can re-use a hand-drawn Nav Plus after creating it).

Jim Marggraff speaking at CES’ Higher Ed Tech Summit

January 7th, 2010

Pulse inventor and Livescribe CEO Jim Marggraff will be speaking at the Higher Ed Tech Summit at this year’s CES in Las Vegas!

If you’re attending CES, be sure to check out Jim’s presentation at the “High Tech Backpack Panel,” where he and other panelists will discuss the new college essentials. Details below!

WHAT: “The High Tech Backpack” featuring Jim Marggraff, Livescribe CEO along with Zipcar, and GAriGrid and moderator Josh Fischman from the Chronicle of Higher Education
WHERE: Las Vegas Convention Center, North Hall Room N264
WHEN: Friday, January 8 at 2:30 p.m.

For more information, check out the Higher Ed Tech Summit page.

Happy Holidays from Livescribe: Our Facebook Winners Share Their Naughty and Nice Stories

December 25th, 2009

Congratulations again to our recent Facebook sweepstakes winners. Some of you have been asking whether they’ve been naughty or nice, so we asked them to share their story and tell us what they were planning to do with their shiny, new 4GB Pulse smartpen for the holidays! Check out what they told us!

Our first winner, Darlene, from Corning, New York, was very nice this year:

Even though this has been an extremely hard year economically for me I have kept a positive attitude and tried to help others who have dealt with losing their jobs. If we all support one another I feel we will be encouraged to move forward with a brighter outlook towards the future.

This is what she’s planning to do with her Pulse:

I plan to give the Pulse smartpen as a gift to my significant other who is a teacher. He teaches children in group homes ordered by the courts. His days are very long and he deals with several different people on a daily basis. This Pulse smartpen will come in extremely handy while recording his daily events.

On the other hand, Caitlin from Hopewell Junction, New York was naughty this year:

Naughty, because this year I spoiled myself and followed my heart. That may not be naughty to other people but for me I hardly ever do things just because I want to.

This is what she’s planning to do with her Pulse:

I haven’t decided yet if I will be naughty and keep it, or be nice and give it to my boyfriend. If I do the latter, which I probably will, I will still be able to use it, so I get the best of both worlds - being generous but still being able to benefit from this generous gift. The Pulse smartpen will help me in school so that I can study more efficiently.

And last but not least, Candy from Newland, North Carolina was nice this year:

I was nice this year, as I have been doing a lot of care giving for my sick parents this year.

This is what she’s planning to do with her Pulse:

I am now going to be naughty and keep the smartpen for myself! I think it will help me with work because I have to attend a lot of meetings, and my mind tends to wander at these things. I think the smartpen will help me capture things I might ordinarily miss.

Happy Holidays from Livescribe!

How to Install and Download Apps from Livescribe Desktop

December 22nd, 2009

The release of Livescribe Desktop - Version 2.0 allows you to download apps from the Livescribe Store to your Pulse smartpen. Download the new version of Livescribe Desktop here and then download some apps from the Livescribe Store to your smartpen!

Watch how to download apps from Livescribe Desktop for Windows:

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

click here for high res version (MP4)

Watch how to download apps from Livescribe Desktop for Mac:

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

click here for high res version (MP4)

Livescribe Desktop: New look and features

December 22nd, 2009

The release of Livescribe Desktop - Version 2.0 allows you to download apps from the Livescribe Store to your Pulse smartpen. But that’s not all. Our teams added several new features and improvements with this upgrade. Download the new version of Livescribe Desktop here.

Livescribe Desktop for Windows
Improvements and Features

  • Purchase and download new smartpen applications from the Livescribe Store
  • Perform multiple-select and multiple-delete and rename sessions in place in Audio View
  • Search across multiple notebooks
  • Set user preferences like showing your default smartpen at start-up, hide or show blank pages, change ink colors for notes with audio, notes without audio, and notes with playback audio.
  • Click on bookmarks you set on your smartpen in the audio timeline within Livescribe Desktop.

For more information about these features and improvements, check out of Livescribe Desktop for Windows User Manual.

It's easier to organize and search your notes and audio with the new version of Livescribe Desktop for Windows

It's easier to organize and search your notes and audio with the new version of Livescribe Desktop for Windows.

Livescribe Desktop for Mac
Improvements and Features

  • Purchase and download new smartpen applications from the Livescribe Store
  • Print your own Livescribe dot paper
  • Set user preferences like launching Livescribe Desktop when you connect your smartpen to your computer, and automatically adding purchased applications and software updates
  • Perform multiple-select for thumbnails and sessions

For more information about these features and improvements, check out of Livescribe Desktop for Mac User Manual.

The new version of Livescribe Desktop for Mac allows you to print your own Livescribe dot paper

The new version of Livescribe Desktop for Mac allows you to print your own Livescribe dot paper.

Congratulations to our Facebook Sweepstakes Winners!

December 21st, 2009

Over the last month we asked our Facebook fans if they have been naughty or nice for a chance to win a 4GB Pulse smartpen in time for the holidays. Want to guess how many were naughty or nice?

79% of our fans said they have been nice and 21% have been naughty this year.

Congratulations to our lucky winners:

Darlene W. from Corning, New York
Candy Y., from Newland, North Carolina
Caitlin S. from Hopewell Junction, New York

Happy holidays from the Livescribe team!


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