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The Science Behind a Smartpen
It wasn’t too long ago that I was a graduate student - taking notes, studying for tests, and writing papers. My life was filled with lots of paperwork and lots of stress as I worked to get everything “right.” Now I’m in front of the class as a professor, and none of that pressure has gone away. If you’re a student in my class, you write one paper…but I grade 90 papers. Same goes for tests. (The one redeeming factor is that I know the answers ahead of time.) =)
I can’t wait until the smartpen is available for my students - and for me. At Livescribe, we’ve spent a lot of time developing a user interface and applications that will make life a lot easier and less stressful.
My area of expertise is instructional technology. I spend a lot of my time trying to figure out how to use technology to make teaching and learning more effective, efficient, and accessible. It turns out that there’s a lot the scientific research community has learned about how to do this. Unfortunately, much of what is known is buried in dusty journals–the science hasn’t been turned into technology.
This is what we’ve done at Livescribe. We’ve taken this scientific knowledge and created easy-to-use applications that will help you to work more efficiently and think more effectively, with the end result that you will learn more quickly and remember what you’ve learned for longer.
I look forward to sharing with you, through this blog, the science behind how our pen and our applications work. I think you’ll be amazed at what you’re capable of if given the right tools.
Andy Van Schaack, Ph.D.
Senior Science Advisor
Tags: applications, instructional technology, learning, teaching
November 4th, 2007 at 8:51 am
I cannot wait to purchase this smartpen. I only have one question and all the informaiton on the web that I have read does not answer this directly. Will this smartpen be able to translate my handwriting into text? If so, will that be the first software package that the smartpen will some with. This way I can write a paper by hand, upload it, and the software will translate it into text. Please do let me know if this is something the smartpen does for sure. If so, I will buy it ASAP. Thanks!
November 5th, 2007 at 12:03 am
I’ve had the same question. You would think it should since almost all other “smart” pens do this–a la logitech, FLY Fusion, etc. Why isn’t this a bigger part of the story? Or is this a feature left out?
November 5th, 2007 at 11:43 am
I think the first thing Livescribe will do is to translate our handwritten text into notes. But this will not be the most important function of this product because some other products already has text translation . This technological pen, however, offers something more intelligent and interesting. You can listen your audio records of your lectures from any point of time by simply tapping the parts of your handwriting. Even more exciting, the pen will also offers different platnforms to third party firm to develop. This is very exciting because the pen will offer potential solutions to calculus, learning langauges, etc. Just think of the possbility! Just remember please don’t buy any close substitutes of this pen. They may look the same and offer similar solutions but they lack practicality of notetaking functions, style&look, and most importantly a platform to be exploited.
November 5th, 2007 at 11:57 am
I am looking at this from the teaching side.
I would like to know how easy it will be to annotate Powerpoint slides with this. How will the Livescribe pen treat pictures? Are animations possible?
This is an exciting device, by the way.
November 5th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
I too was wondering if the LiveScribe would translate written notes into text. I digitally record while taking meeting minutes at several Statewide CA Community College meetings.
This technology is exciting because if I do not get the gist of what someone is saying or they are speaking too fast, I write down some key words, the time and a note prompting myself to listen to the digital recording, which I have to fast forward through until I find the correct passage. The Livescribe would speed this process up for me. However, it would still be necessary for me to type up the handwritten notes into “official” minutes.
If Livescribe could translate my handwritten notes into text, we would like purchase several of these pens for our office and other committees our office supports just for the purpose of taking minutes.
Please have someone reply. Thanks!
November 6th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
I’m left-handed and use a Mac! I hope I will still be able to use this wonderful piece of technology. As a lefty, I write with bad handwriting using a style of writing that got me lots of attention in middle school from my English teacher. She told me, “learn to hold your pen correctly or you will never write neatly”. I type now but still find myself needing to use a pen for notes. Will my bad hand positioning interferer with the pen? Are there different pen tips, certain ballpoint pens will not work with my vertical pen positioning? Oh and the Mac. Will software be made for a Mac, Yes!
Thanks for making a great ideal into reality. Your hopeful lefty, Mac using, teacher from TN, who hopes to be a Loveswcribe user soon. By the way, I will be a tester if you need one.
November 11th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
I understood from D that this was to be oriented more towards a business user, yet I see the examples here towards college students, and similar. As a business person, this would be extremely useful for me if I could use the device in meetings and then be able to recycle the paper and use on my Mac. I get my voice mail converted to text from Vonage, and it is surprisingly accurate. Please work on a way to use similar technology to transcibe the recorded audio, as I know that this would be highly useful.
Speaking of usability, as I read, you can use the headphones to record in stereo, but I understand that you’d have to plug these into the pen. Would that make it tough to write?
November 18th, 2007 at 5:05 am
This does look great but has anyone got an answer as to whether it will work with a mac?
November 20th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Alan - Livescribe is committed to serving both the Windows and Macintosh platforms. The first release of the Livescribe Desktop software is for Windows XP and Vista operating systems only. A Macintosh version of the Livescribe Desktop is planned for 2H 2008.
November 23rd, 2007 at 7:27 pm
I also was wondering about the handwritting-to-text conversion. I know that the Fly Fusion has this function, but I have yet to see any “official” information from LiveScribe if it can accomplish this task or not.
If it does have this capability, this modern marvel will not only WOW college students but the business world as well. I work full time as a sales rep and also attend college, so I can see the advantages from both sides!
Thank you.
November 27th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
Ouch, 2nd Half of 2008 for Mac Compatibility. This is very confusing given the target market.
November 29th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
I’m taking that since the moderator ignored the most popular in this thread “does it convert written text to editable digital text?” the pen doesn’t do it.
I think that this is a very important feature for them to leave out. If the pen doesn convert writting to digital text , then I will go for another product.
Anyways everyone can just take a recorder and record a lecture while writting down. I can also scan my notes in my scanner and email them… and none of that will require a $200 pen or special paper.
My desicion of buying this product relies on whether or not does it convert the text.
Then my option would be to buy a Fly Fusion .
December 1st, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Will the translation software be able to recognize that I’m making a table that I’d eventually be able to import into MS Excel or Word?
December 1st, 2007 at 10:54 pm
As an engineer, a couple of paper options would be really useful to me:
- completely blank or nearly-invisible grid
- border + title block (e.g., for architectural/engineering drafting)
(I do a lot of erasing, so I what I *really* need is a digital pencil and eraser
I saw a digital pen on the Anoto website that has a Bluetooth interface. Will Livescribe (eventually?) have this? What would really be cool is to interactively enter scribbles into a paired computer (or smart phone!).
I’m really excited that you guys will have support for Mac. I was seriously looking at getting a Fly Fusion for my niece this Christmas, but that’s Windows-only, and my sister’s is an all-Mac house. I know Livescribe won’t be ready yet, but maybe it will be something for *next* Christmas…
December 20th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Hi Maria & Kathi,
We definitely understand that people want to know the full functionality of the pen ASAP. Please be assured we will have detailed information on 3rd party ink-to-text transcription solutions available at launch. Thanks for your interest!
January 18th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
When we the Smartpen be out for-sale? Where can I buy a Smartpen?
January 23rd, 2008 at 2:04 pm
The Livescribe smartpen is currently available for pre-order at http://www.livescribe.com.
-Livescribe
February 12th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
My Fly Fusion arrived today, so I have been playing with it all morning. My main reason to buy it is to test the note-taking capability as I take notes all day from one meeting or another (Yes, I buy the Fly Fusion for ME, not my daughter) and livescribe is not out yet.
My biggest complain right now is that although it recognize my handwriting just fine, it only gives me two option to save my file : TEXT (full OCR result) or IMAGE. (JPG and BMP only) What I want is PDF or anything that layer image over OCR. I want the full text searchability BUT I want my sketch drawings saved as well. That is why I take paper notes vs typing it out in meetings.
I hope livescribe can do better…
(and I also hope that someone would build a save to PDF application on fly fusion.)