Livescribe platform, bridging paper and PC

Anybody think that the pen and paper is obsolete and that we’re quickly becoming a paperless based society? A lot of people would likely think so, with more and more computers, mobile gadgets and smart electronics, we spend less and less time writing on paper.

Enter the Livescribe platform, a set of tools allowing traditional scribbling and writing on paper, and more. With the SmartPen as its main tool, people can use DotPaper (plain paper printed with micro-dots, allowing it to interact with the SmartPen) to take notes, while SmartPen records any audio, digitizes handwriting and synchronizes both. Later on, when you tap on certain places on the DotPaper, the SmartPen can playback the audio that was taken at the time. This is Livescribe’s first key application called the “Paper Relay”, very useful for meetings, lectures and discussions.

The Livescribe platform also features other applications such as math recognition (allowing it to actually calculate the answer and either speak it out or display it on the OLED screen), word definition and translation, internet connectivity, emailing of pictures/handwriting, uploading to PC, and collaboration, all the while providing tools that allow developers to easily create and distribute new applications. [Side note: How useful would this be for students in a math/foreign language exam?]

Availability is set at the beginning of Q4 2007 with a price of $200 for the SmartPen.

Gizmodo]