Recent Coverage

2008 CES Wrapup (San Diego Transcript)

January 10, 2008 – Phil Baker

“Livescribe is the next generation product with many new features that will appeal to business people and students. It’s also much slimmer and better crafted. Imagine a pen that you can take notes with while you're recording a lecture or meeting. You can go back and touch the pen to your notes and it will play back that part of the meeting.”

You Tell Us: An Electronic Pen That Listens and Talks Back

January 1, 2008 – IEEE Spectrum Online

“If a pen that helps preschoolers learn to read by sounding out the words they point to in specially produced books could top the list of the most popular toys for two years in a row, how popular would an adult version be? Livescribe Inc., an Oakland, Calif.–based start-up founded by Jim Marggraff, the inventor of the LeapPad’s pen-based computing platform, is about to find out.”

Top 10 Gadgets for College Students

December 14, 2007 – Sports Illustrated

“So if you often find yourself too busy copying down diagrams to actually listen to your professors, fret no more. Go to your notes, and tap your pen twice. You'll hear an audio recording of what went on exactly at the time you were frantically trying to catch up. Amaaaazing and under $200”

Computing on Paper

December 13, 2007 – Technology Review

“A new smartpen could change the way people practice mobile computing by bringing processing power to traditional pen and paper. Made by Livescribe, of Oakland, CA, the smartpen is designed to digitize the words and drawings that a user puts down on paper and bring them to life.”

Smartpen aids blind engineering students

December 5, 2007 – EE Times

“Engineering and science classes, which depend heavily on diagrams, graphs, charts and other figures, ordinarily put students with visual disabilities at a significant disadvantage,” said Andrew VanSchaack, Livescribe's (Oakland, Calif.) senior science adviser and a professor at Vanderbilt. “We plan to use Livescribe's Smartpen and Sewell's Raised Line Drawing Kit to make it easier for blind students to attend these classes.”

Livescribe ready to ink January launch

November 15, 2007 – CNET

“Livescribe is one of a handful of companies hoping there is still some ink in the well when it comes to the notion of pen computing. Hoping to keep the buzz going until the product itself is ready, the company launched a new blog, posted additional technical details and kicked off a contest in which it is giving away two of its devices a day, with the promise that winners will get their pen before the product is generally available.”

Part PC, Part Table Or Pen, New Ways To Get Things Done

November 13, 2007 – OhGizmo!

“...I got quite a few tips about the Livescribe Smartpen as a more 'adult-oriented' alternative. (And by 'adult' I mean 'grown-up.') Well the other day the company sent me a message about their new blog that also happened to include the first photos of the Smartpen hardware.”

The Pen Is Mighty; the Computer Pen Might Be Mightier

June 4, 2007 – Yahoo! Tech

“The company is hoping that software developers will create all sorts of special applications. But one of the fundamental applications, "Paper Replay," is already part of the system. Paper Replay lets you take notes with the pen while you're speaking at the same time.”

Part PC, Part Table Or Pen, New Ways To Get Things Done

June 2, 2007 – InformationWeek

“Smartpen's most important initial application will be Paper Replay. Because audio and keystrokes will be marked by time stamps, and because the pen and paper incorporate a GPS-like system, users can tap the pen on a specific word or phrase in their notes and immediately hear back whatever was being said when the notes were being written.”

Livescribe Smartpen

May 30, 2007 – All Things Digital, CA

“A student sitting in a classroom taking notes can download them into a desktop computer and manipulate them in many ways. (“So one student in a class of 150 could come take notes and sell them to 150?” Walt asked. “What a country.”) That same student can archive the notes and search them for review purposes (cramming for an exam), as well as searching the recorded audio version of those notes.”

Takahashi: 'Smart pen' helps get notes organized

May 30, 2007 – San Jose Mercury News, CA

“…a “smart pen” with a computer in it that can record up to 100 hours of boring lectures and tie the recording to digitized version of your handwritten notes. You can upload the notes you’ve taken with the pen to a laptop computer and then search for key words. When you click on words, you can play the recording of the words at the precise time you wrote the words.”

Jobs, Gates to reunite at digital conference

May 30, 2007 – USA Today

“Start-up Livescribe showed a fountain-pen-size "smart pen" that records text written on special paper. It also records audio, which can be played back. Text and audio can also be uploaded to computers for replay.”

Yes, but can it doodle?

May 30, 2007 – Oakland Tribune

"A smart pen that captures your notes, records what you hear, solves your math problems, translates languages and sends handwritten e-mails is extraordinary to experience," Marggraff said. "It is the harbinger of a new era of mobile computing." Uses he foresees include taking notes during a discussion or lecture, which the pen will record and digitize. The notes can be stored and uploaded to a personal computer. Or they can be played back as voice audio when the note taker taps on the ink on the dot paper.”

Livescribe Smartpen Links Your Scribbes with Audio Notes

May 30, 2007 – Gizmodo.com

“In a nutshell, the most critically cool thing it can do is link audio recordings you make as you jot written notes to the actual text you're writing. And it can later all be indexed on a PC, and played back on the computer. Or by clicking on the notepad. Completely useful for students, journalists, lawyers—anyone who takes a lot of notes. And it works.”

Take Note: Computing Takes Up Pen, Again

May 29, 2007 – New York Times, NY

“Anyone that is writing notes on paper, wants to capture the information, they want to access the information,” Mr. Marggraff said. “We are giving a way for people to essentially forget about forgetting.”

The Shape of Computers to Come?

May 29, 2007 – Wall Street Journal

“Livescribe's "Smartpen" adds a microphone and a small display on the side of the pen. A user can tap on a section of written notes, for example, and call up a recording in the pen of what an instructor was saying when those words were written. Mr. Marggraff, who expects to deliver the device in October for less than $200, plans to create a community of programmers to write exchange applications for the Smartpen. "I believe this will affect the way people think," he says.”

D5: A new pen for a new era

May 29, 2007 – San Francisco Chronicle, CA

“We’re creating a new medium,” he said. “We can see this changing the world. It can affect people from executives to people in the developing world.”

Livescribe lets the paper do the talking, and thinking

May 29, 2007 – Venturebeat

“I got a personal demo of the technology from Jim Marggraff, chief executive of the company, and I was immediately sold. As someone who takes copious notes and would like to find the vocal version instantly, this is quite the journalist’s nirvana. Moreover, it lets you hook up to a computer, so that you can see the spoken version of your notes unfolding on your computer screen (it uses translation technology, to translate the voice into text). It shows you where you are in the lecture, and the parts that are still to come — in a different shade of color.”