First Impressions: Pulse Smartpen
I am lucky enough to have gotten my hands on a Pulse Smartpen made by Livescribe. It’s currently sitting next to me in its cradle charging and I thought I’d take a minute to tell you a little bit about it and what I think.
Basically the Pulse is a pen that records what you write and what you hear. The pen has a microphone and an infrared camera and then links the two together. I’m hoping to use the pen to take notes in class from now on. It could be really helpful!
The people at Livescribe have done a good job of making their rather complex product easy to understand and use. There is an interactive tutorial that helps you configure your pen and try out all the basic functions. There are buttons and menus and all sorts of controls that are right on the paper to use (special paper of course, but you can print your own, apparently!)
I can’t tell you too much about how well the product works, but that the tutorial stuff I’ve gone through has at least met my expectations (which weren’t too low) and I’m eager to try it out for real come the start of my spring semester in a few weeks.
There is one little feature that I thought was fun and I wanted to show you. To be honest it’s pretty useless, but it’s a good way to show off what the pen can do. Enjoy!
PS I’m actually showing off two gadgets in one here. That video was taken with a Flip Mino HD. Expect a first impressions post soon on that too!
Tags: gadgets, livescribe, pulse, pulse smartpen, Reviews
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December 28, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Okay, so the Piano function is pretty neat! I could see myself sitting in class for hours on end, not taking notes, playing the paper piano. :)
December 28, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Don’t encourage me ;)
December 28, 2008 at 9:51 pm
That is so cool! Thanks for sharing!
January 14, 2009 at 8:08 am
What the heck? You can play the piano with this thing!? That’s awesome!
Thanks for sharing!!
January 14, 2009 at 8:24 am
Holy cow– you have no idea. I’ve finally started using it for real this week for classes and it’s brilliant! It doesn’t convert my notes to a text file, but I can search for a certain word and it’ll find it in my notes for me.. My handwriting isn’t all that great so I was really impressed!
January 24, 2009 at 8:22 am
Hey Kathleen! I’m glad you are enjoying your new Pulse! I got one last fall and I used it nearly everyday for classes. When finals rolled around I discovered how useful (and powerful!) the Search Text feature was. Be sure to check it out!
PS – If you have any questions, concerns, ideas, or suggestions..tweet @livescribe! We’re all ears! d^_^b
PPS – Congrats on hitting 800 Followers! And thanks for the nice blogpost!
January 25, 2009 at 2:37 pm
[...] Kathleen meets the Internet Thoughts on Social Media « First Impressions: Pulse Smartpen [...]
January 25, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Adam, thanks for taking a look at this! Yeah, it will be really interesting to see how this changes my studying when finals happen.
You’re an interesting company. Do you market yourselves to journalists much? My journo friends are the ones who have been the most interested in hearing what I think and after using it I can see that it would really benefit them.
March 26, 2009 at 6:57 am
[...] heard of them from Kathleen Danielson. She’s a student who started using one a month ago and seems pleased. I don’t use a Livescribe pen, not yet, but I started following Livescribe [...]