Last week, we were honored to receive a coveted Duke’s Choice Award in the mobile device category for the Pulse smartpen at the 2008 JavaOne Conference. Selected by Sun Fellow James Gosling and a panel of Sun technology experts, the Duke’s Choice Awards recognize the year’s most influential Java^TM technology-based companies around the world.

In addition, we hosted a developer competition at JavaOne, giving developers a sneak peek at our Java API and pre-release versions of early development tools, which we plan on making publicly available in the second half of 2008. The competition allowed developers to create innovative and compelling Java software-based applications for the Pulse smartpen in several categories, including innovation, utility, fun, and education.

CEO Jim Marggraff participated in James Gosling’s keynote speech last Friday to demonstrate the Pulse smartpen and announce the winners of our developer competition. The winners for each category were as follows:

• Innovation - Letter Guess by Wei Xu
• Utility - JSR Jumble by Kathy Fong
• Fun - Tic Tac Toe by Wei Xu
• Education - Wumpus by Corey Minter

We were very excited about our participation in the JavaOne conference and allowing Java developers to create new, forward thinking applications for the Pulse smartpen.

For all interested developers, our Developer Program will include suite of tools and services for users, casual developers and professional developers to create, publish, share and sell their applications. In addition to developer tools, we will also provide technical documentation, starter guides, sample code, community forums and technical support. You can learn more about our Developer Program here.

Livescribe will play an integral role at the annual JavaOne Conference in San Francisco from May 6-9, as one of only three companies selected by Sun Microsystems as a JavaOne Show Device. In addition, Livescribe will host a developer competition at JavaOne, giving developers a sneak peek at Livescribe’s Java API and pre-release versions of early development tools, which will be made publicly available in the second half of 2008.

WHAT: Livescribe’s developer competition allows developers to get a sneak peek at Livescribe’s Java API and learn to create innovative and compelling Java-based applications for Livescribe’s new mobile computing platform. Developers will compete in categories including innovation, utility, fun, and education. Winners will be awarded one 2GB Pulse smartpen and will be featured on www.livescribe.com.

WHERE: Moscone Center, San Francisco - Booth #1223

WHEN: Interested participants of the Livescribe developer competition must wait until 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday, May 6, to register and receive access to Livescribe’s JavaOne developer tools specially created for the conference. Entries are due by 4 p.m. on Thursday, May 8, and will be judged by both Livescribe and Sun representatives. Applications will be accepted online at www.livescribe.com/developer.

The winners of the Livescribe developer competition will be announced during James Goslings’ final keynote address on Friday, May 9.

WHY: JavaOne brings together industry leaders and developers in a single, comprehensive event that offers compelling visions of the technology future in terms of trends, challenges, and opportunities. Livescribe’s participation in the conference marks the first time the company has opened its doors to Java developers from around the world to create new, forward thinking applications that advance Livescribe’s mobile computing platform.

Thanks for your patience as we finished taking orders from our preorder customers. Starting today, the Pulse smartpen is now available to the public via our online store at www.livescribe.com.

Current shipment estimates are roughly 4-6 weeks from your date of purchase, and are subject to change based on demand. So order now - and never miss a word again!

You’ll also notice this week that we’ve changed our website here and there. One of the things we are trying to do is improve our responsiveness to the Livescribe community. To that end, we are modifying our company blog to a post-only format, and encouraging questions, suggestions, and feedback from our customers moving forward in our Customer Support forums.

Please check out our forum page at www.livescribe.com/support and continue to send us your comments and suggestions.

You can listen to NPR’s Morning Edition coverage on the Pulse smartpen by clicking on the link below:

High-Tech Pen Makes Note-Taking Easier, Morning Edition on NPR
April 21, 2008 - by Cyrus Farivar

We’ve put together answers and updates to some of the most frequently asked questions we received since Monday when we opened up our Livescribe Store to preorder customers. Thanks for your patience for these answers - we try to make time at least once a week to check back on the blog, check comments, and respond to as many of your questions where we can. We also encourage you to post comments and questions on the Live Chat or Forum sections of the Customer Support page on our site, which is monitored daily.

What kind of dot paper is available? What about free dot-paper printing?
A 100-sheet single subject college-ruled notebook is included with every Pulse smartpen purchase. We also have the following Livescribe dot paper options now available for purchase in the Livescribe Store:

- A 4-pack of 100-sheet single subject college-ruled notebooks is $19.95.
- A 2-pack of 99-sheet journals is $24.95. You can choose between lined or unlined pages.

We’ll be offering more Livescribe dot paper options in the coming weeks. We will also enable customers to print Livescribe dot paper for free; however that feature is still in testing and not yet available. We will notify you on our blog as soon as we have a public release date for that feature, but we estimate that it will be a few more months before we roll it out publicly.

If I placed my order, are you charging my credit card before my smartpen is shipped?
If you placed your order, you will not be charged until your order is shipped. Your order will show up on your account as a pending authorization or temporary hold until the order is actually completed and shipped. Click here to learn more about what a temporary hold is by Paypal.

So when am I going to really get my Pulse smartpen?
We’ve received some additional inquiries about shipping and timing, so we wanted to provide more clarity on our production and shipment schedule.

Smartpens are currently batch-processed and shipped based on your preorder date. We have already shipped our first batch of Pulse smartpens to preorder customers and we are eagerly waiting to hear from our first owners’ experiences!

We’re continuing to ramp up production and will ship our second batch to preorder customers this month. Each of our first Pulse smartpens is hand-tested to ensure product quality before it is shipped.

You can check your expected ship date by logging in to the Livescribe Store. Once your order is shipped, you will also receive an email notification with a FedEx tracking number.

Can I go back and place another order?
Currently, preorder customers are allowed to make only one order and a maximum of two pens per customer. Once the store becomes publicly available in a few weeks, you can order as often as you wish!

Why doesn’t the Livescribe Store recognize my preorder email address?
It’s possible we have a different email address for you in our system, or a typo in your email address. Please contact our Customer Support staff and they can help you work out the problem.

If you have any additional issues with the ordering process - please visit www.livescribe.com/support and we’ll do the best we can to answer your questions.

Thanks!
The Livescribe Team

In January, we posted several Pulse demo videos that show different features of the smartpen and how it works.

While filming these videos, we had a few extra minutes to spare and made a goofy vignette comparing a Pulse smartpen with a regular pen (played by Zac, our multi-talented graphic designer). Probably not ready for prime time - but we thought we’d pass it along.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Dear Livescribe customers,

We noticed a nasty glitch in our software that generated some of your order email confirmations. A small number of the first customers who placed orders today received April 7th as the shipment date in their email confirmation, despite being given a different date when they first created their Livescribe account.

We quickly fixed this bug - and the receipts on any new orders placed now accurately reflect your shipment date. For those of you who got the conflicting shipment message - we’re sorry for the mix-up. The date you received when you initially created a Livescribe account is the accurate shipment date based on your preorder priority.

Thanks,
Livescribe Customer Support

Just a quick update - we just sent out an email to our preorder customers, with instructions on how to complete your order. If you don’t want to wait for the email to arrive in your inbox, click here to see the email.

Greetings,

I would like to thank the thousands of readers, writers, bloggers, callers, developers, scribers and buyers for your support and interest in our Pulse smartpen and platform.

We have been overwhelmed with requests for information and preorders for Pulse that have far exceeded our early projections.

As this demand has accelerated in the past month, we have continued working towards our first shipment date of March 31st, and have struggled to determine how to address preorders that far exceed our early production ramp. We noted Amazon’s approach to handling shipment for their high-demand Kindle e-book, and ongoing Wii shortages, and have compared this to our own challenge, as a new company, to address our backlog.

In retrospect, our hiatus in our communication is long overdue. I apologize for this. As I considered posting a blog entry numerous times, new concerns regarding growing demand arose, as well as meeting our growing backlog. Perhaps we were overly cautious in not wanting to send an ambiguous message.

The time for ambiguity is past.

I am delighted to announce that we will begin shipping in limited volume on March 31st, as targeted.

To address our backlog, we will open the Livescribe Store only to our preorder list of customers, enabling you to immediately place a credit card order on Monday. At that time, we will provide you with an estimated shipment date based upon when you first preordered your smartpen. If you are already on our preorder list, look for an email on Monday, March 31st with instructions on how to complete your order.

Thanks again for you patience! We look forward to welcoming you to the Livescribe community.

Best regards,

Jim

We’re excited to share a story with you from Zara, a college student who is using a beta version of Pulse. Enjoy!

Zara wrote:

I just wanted to mention that Pulse REALLY helped me study for my math midterm today (which I aced). I was worried that the smartpen might just be one of those gadgets you think you’re going to use, and then it ends up sitting in a drawer, but I really used it. My professor is really hard to learn from in lecture because he stands in front of the board, so I can’t see problems, and his handwriting is illegible. I ended up using Pulse to go over my notes when I finally got frustrated with them, and it was amazing!

My professor’s lecture suddenly became totally understandable when I could listen to his anecdotes alongside my own handwriting, and I realized what a good teacher he is. Now I understand that almost all of the communication problems we have are just because he’s practically blind, can’t see what he’s writing, and has to stand so close to the board. I wish he’d just use overheads, though.