Dear Livescribe supporters,

On behalf of all of us here at Livescribe, we understand your frustration and hear your concerns about the shipping date for the Pulse smartpen.

For the past couple years, we’ve encountered numerous challenges to achieve the light weight and size of our smartpen, excellent fidelity in audio for far-field recording, immediate responsiveness to the touch, a $149 price point, and a Java-based platform that will support a broad range of future applications. If you’ve ever been part of starting a new company, you understand the moments of exhilaration stacked against the moments of exhaustion requiring sheer, dogged perseverance to overcome the incredible odds facing a new venture.

We were told by many people — potential investors, technologists, and others that what we were attempting to do was impossible: You can’t make a pen that small with that functionality…You’ll never be able to hit a $149 price point…You can’t record audio at a distance; the best consumer digital recorders in the world don’t even do this…

We are very close to finishing the product; we’re completing our testing, planning to start shipping by March 31st, and ramping up our production as rapidly as possible.

So please bear with us. We’re a small, passionate team of committed individuals, working 100+ hours per week, for many months now, to bring something great to you. My family and I are among the heaviest trial users and live through the ups and downs of code advancement, bugs, and breakthroughs hour by hour.

I can attest to the fact that we’re bringing Pulse and the Livescribe platform as quickly to market as possible without compromising quality. We hope to bring a major advancement in learning, problem solving, communicating and thinking to the world with Pulse.

Thanks for your patience, support and belief in Livescribe and our vision!

Jim Marggraff
Founder and CEO

Good news! We’ve heard your request for a smaller journal option with your Pulse smartpen, so we’ve accelerated our production efforts to offer a hard-bound leather journal (5.5 x 8.25 inches) for customers that prefer something smaller than a college-sized notebook. These journals, along with college ruled notebooks and other Pulse accessories, will be available for sale on www.livescribe.com in March.

Here’s a sneak preview of what the journal looks like:

Livescribe journals will be offered as a 2-pack for $24.95. There will be a lined and unlined version.

Thanks for your feedback!

Nancy Gayed
Director of Product Management

Thanks to everyone for their fantastic ideas. From the construction project manager to the flight instructor to the stock trader to the claims adjuster what we see is that the uses of the Pulse smartpen are endless. Your entries demonstrated just how impactful Pulse can be in the context of work, personal productivity, and even relationships.

With over 100 responses, it was difficult to choose just two winners. Congratulations to Jarrod and Ana. Jarrod, you made us laugh and humor goes a long way over here. Ana, having gone to law school I feel your pain and hope the Pulse smartpen will help you in your second semester.

Thanks again for your thoughtful ideas.

Sasha
Chief Operating Officer

Jarrod says:
Every time I sense a new lovers’ quarrel emerging between my girlfriend and me, I’d start taking notes.
You think I said what? Well, let’s just see what the notes say.
What’s that, honey? You think I wrote it down wrong? Hmm… if only we could somehow replay the-HA!
Livescribe Smartpen: Never lose another argument.

Ana says:
I just finished my first semester at Harvard Law School, and for so many reasons, the LiveScribe Pen sounds like my wish come true.
A growing number of profs at the law school have started implementing no-laptop policies in the classroom because they envision an “ideal” where students-instead of trying to transcribe their classes-actually listen and reflect on what is being said in class, while participating in the discussion too. However, the sad truth is that law school topics are so complicated that most students don’t feel like this is really an option if they don’t want to be ultra-confused by the end of the semester, so they try to take transcripts on their notebooks anyway.
I was one of those law students. I spent UNGODLY amounts of time in office hours this fall semester asking professors to basically repeat portions of their lectures because I simply didn’t “get that part” down on paper. I mean, not only are these professors complete geniuses in their field-and therefore operating at a MUCH higher level than their law students-but most of them talk really quickly too!!! Bad, BAD combo for students stuck with traditional pens and paper.
The LiveScribe Pen seems like my wish come true. It would let me have the best of both worlds: I could listen and participate in class while taking the “major” notes (which is the “ideal” image in the law professor’s minds), and then I could review the parts in which I was confused and get the important details that I missed later on after class. Now, I won’t HAVE to go to office hours every single week and bug my professors simply because I “missed some words” that made all of my notes incomprehensible!!!
If only LiveScribe had come out before my first semester …