Thursday, Sep. 02, 2010

Livescribe Echo Smartpen

It may not take the notes for you, but Livescribe's Echo smartpen does just about everything else. The marker-sized pen includes a voice recorder with up to 8GB of storage capability and includes neat little trick — just tap a word of your notes to replay the corresponding audio snippet of that moment of the lecture. With an infrared sensor that senses the tiny dots on the Livescribe notebook paper to use as reference points, it's more magic wand than pen — but your prof will never know the difference. Once back in your dorm, simply connect the pen to your computer using a USB cord, and the accompanying software (Windows and Mac OS X) uploads handwritten notes exactly as they appeared in your notebook. The Livescribe Desktop application then organizes notes — even converting simultaneous note taking and recording into "pencasts" that highlight words in synchronization with audio when played.

Price: $169 for 4GB, $199 for 8GB

(See Techland's best back-to-school apps list)