Macsimum review: Livescribe/Pulse combo innovative though not for everyone

Posted by Dennis Sellers Feb 6, 2009 at 5:00am

If you’re looking for a unique product, look no further than Livescribe Inc.’s Livescribe Desktop software/Pulse smartpen combo. It’s not for everyone (including folks like me, who tend to lose pens as often as I lose sunglasses). But for those who do lots of note-taking the old-fashioned way—with a pen—or for those who simply like to have the latest, greatest technology for bragging rights, this will get your Pulse racing.

In fact, it’s so innovative I’m tempted to call it the iPen. But I won’t.

LiveScribe debuted its self-titled, Mac compatible software for the Pulse at January’s Macworld Conference & Expo. Livescribe’s Pulse smartpen captures handwriting and simultaneously records audio and synchronizes it to the writing. This means you never have to miss a word you hear, write or speak. You can see the advantages of this to students, to medical professionals and to anyone who needs to record his/her voice (or that of others) while they jot down notes.

But there is a learning curve and specialty requirements so the technology isn’t for those who think they’re getting a pen with a computerized pen with no more extra work than using a Bic.

However, for some folks, the Livescribe/Pulse combo will be a blessing. Not only can you record, but, after recording, you can tap on your notes to replay what was recorded from the exact moment you started writing.

With the Livescribe Desktop software, notes and audio recordings can then be transferred to a Mac, where they can be digitally stored, searched, or shared. A short demo of the Livescribe Desktop software is available at http://www.livescribe.com/smartpen/desktop.html. The Livescribe Desktop software for Mac will be available as a free download at http://www.livescribe.com/install on February 17.

Learning to use the Livescribe/Pulse combo takes a bit of practice. In fact, it comes with a training notebook. The cool thing about the notebook is that it has icons that you tap with the Pulse smartpen to activate features and walk you through those features.

First off you set the time and date on the smartpen. That’s important because because files you create with your smartpen are named using the time and date they’re created.

The Livescribe Desktop was around for a while before a Mac version was released. But now that it’s here, it has some features available only for Mac users. You connect the Pulse to your Mac via an USB cradle. The cradle also charges the pen.

Mac users can export and share their notes as PDF files locally from Livescribe Desktop. They can export audio files (in AAC format) separately from notes so they can play them back in iTunes. And they can change the on-screen ink color of their digital notes.

And here’s tech requirement number one: to perform its many operations, the Pulse smartpen requires Livescribe dot paper. This paper is standard paper but with printed microdots on its surface. These dots are nearly invisible to the human eye. However, the smartpen can see these dots and uses them to know which page you are writing on and the exact location on that page. The smartpen can even see these dots through the ink you write on your pages.

The microdots are printed on each page in a special pattern based on technology from Anoto AB. This dot pattern consists of small dots (100 micrometers in diameter) arranged with a spacing of approximately 0.3 mm. The dot pattern overlays an imaginary square grid. The dots are slightly displaced from the grid, with each dot in one of four possible positions, forming the proprietary Anoto dot pattern.

The dot pattern identifies the specific page and locations on the page of the notes you write. The smartpen uses the dot pattern in a way similar to a geographical positioning system (GPS). But, instead of identifying locations on land, it finds locations on paper and stores your writing as digital ink using those locations. Using this patented dot-positioning system (DPS), the smartpen precisely tracks its own movement on paper. As a result, anything you write—words, numbers or drawings—can be stored, recognized, and “intelligently” responded to.

When you power on the Pulse smartpen and begin writing on Livescribe paper, the smartpen captures and stores the notes you write. To capture your writing, the smartpen uses its built-in infrared camera to take digital snapshots of the dot pattern as the tip moves over the paper as you write.

Livescribe dot paper products sometimes re-use dot pattern. As a general rule, you shouldn’t use Livescribe dot paper products with the same dot pattern at the same time. This prevents a potential problem that can happen when viewing your notebooks in Livescribe Desktop: when you write in two notebooks with the same pattern, your notes from the second notebook will be superimposed on your notes from the first notebook when you view them in Livescribe Desktop.
Because Livescribe dot paper products are important to working with your Pulse smartpen, you should learn to manage and archive them. The Pulse pen comes with steps telling you how to do this. And you’ll need to keep a supply of the Livescribe dot paper to use with the Pulse.

When recording audio using the Paper Replay application, the smartpen links the recorded audio to your notes based on the dot pattern on the page. With this information, the smartpen can play back the audio that was recorded at the exact time you were writing your notes. Specifically, when you tap on your notes with the Pulse smartpen, it locates the position where you are tapping and starts to play back the audio at the position linked to that paper location.

Now let’s look at some features of the smartpen. First of all, your smartpen display can be oriented for either left- or right-handed use. The Pulse makes use of the Nav Plus, a paper-based, five-way navigator that enables you to navigate through the smartpen Main Menu and application menus. With Paper Replay, your smartpen records audio and links it to what you write. Later, you can tap on any of your notes and hear the audio that was recorded from that moment.

The Paper Replay control bar printed at the bottom of every notebook page lets you begin and
end a recording as well as manipulate the playback of your recording. Whenever you turn on your Pulse smartpen, a digital copy of your notes is being captured whether or not you choose to record audio.

While your smartpen is paused, it will continue to capture a copy of your digital notes. Any notes that you write after you tap pause are linked to the audio that occurred the moment before you tapped Pause. When you tap on notes that were written while paused, your smartpen will play back the recording from the moment just before you tapped Pause.

There are various ways that you can control the playback of an audio file on your smartpen and quickly locate any section of the audio file. You can also adjust the playback speed. However, audio that’s played back either sped up or slowed down is no longer in stereo. Audio plays in mono until it is returned to normal speed. The Pulse smartpen also support Bookmarks, which allow you to flag a section of audio and later jump to it.

You can add bookmarks while you’re recording or later when you are listening to your audio session. After you’ve added bookmarks to an audio session, you can scan through the bookmarks using the Previous and Next bookmark buttons. During playback, your smartpen display will indicate the bookmarks in the audio timeline.

The volume controls allow you to raise, lower or mute the volume. You can un-mute playback by tapping the mute button a second time. When you begin recording with your Pulse smartpen, audio is automatically linked to anything you write on Livescribe dot paper. This is called a Paper Replay “session.” A session begins when you start recording audio and ends when you stop recording audio. If you pause recording, it’s still considered one session.

If you want to record audio but can’t or don’t want to write on Livescribe dot paper, you can create a “paperless” Paper Replay session. To create a paperless session, begin recording audio and don’t take any notes. The new paperless session will appear in the Paper Replay session list.

To access a paperless session, use the Nav Plus to browse Paper Replay sessions stored on your Pulse smartpen. A paperless session is indicated in the Select Session list with an asterisk next to the filename.

If recording the paperless session was the last action you took with your Pulse smartpen, you can also access the session by tapping on the 0% point of the paper control position bar. You can write new notes and link them to a previously recorded audio file by writing on dot paper while you play back the audio recording.

The Pulse also supports background recording, which lets you launch and run another Pulse smartpen application while you’re using the Paper Replay application. Paper Replay will continue recording in the background, but no ink is linked to any audio, because the new application you launched is receiving the input from your pen strokes.

The newly launched application has the focus of your Pulse smartpen, and has control of your display and audio output. If you want to stop or pause recording, or to add new index points to your recording, Paper Replay must be “reactivated” to become the dominant application again. What’s more, you can share your notes and Paper Replay sessions online.

When you tap your notes to play back a Paper Replay session, the audio will play from a moment five seconds before the note was actually written. This allows you to more accurately replay the moment because there’s natural delay between the time when you hear an important point and the time when you begin writing.

You can use the Audio quality setting to change the compression rate of the recorded AAC audio—the higher the audio quality, the lower the compression rate. As a result, files recorded with the highest audio quality setting will be larger files that require more storage space. These settings can’t be changed during recording. Always select the appropriate audio quality setting before

Additionally, you can change the smartpen microphone sensitivity for different recording situations. Again, these settings can’t be changed while recording, so always select the appropriate microphone setting before beginning a recording. The microphone will stay set at the last setting you chose, so make sure you set it back to Automatic after each use.

The Pulse set sports a calculator that’s located on the inside covers of your notebook performs basic math functions, as well as many scientific, financial, and statistical functions. To use the calculator, tap on the printed keys with the tip of your Pulse smartpen.

Quick Commands let you write a one-line command with your Pulse smartpen and get an immediate response on your smartpen display. Quick Commands come in handy when you don’t have access to the Status buttons on the inside cover of your Livescribe notebooks—or if you need to do a quick calculation while writing.

With the Translator Demo, you can translate a small set of words and the numbers zero to nine from English into Spanish, Swedish, Arabic, or Mandarin. By writing a word in English in your notebook, you can see and hear correct translation from your Pulse smartpen. It’s a clever feature, but the number of words is very limited.

Once you write a word and have it translated, the word you wrote becomes an active “button” you can tap on at any time to launch Translator Demo. Once launched, Translator will translate that word again into any of the Translator languages. For example, if you write “beer” and translate it into Spanish, you will hear and see the Spanish translation of the word “beer.”

With Piano, you can draw a piano on your dotted paper and play music with your Pulse smartpen. You can change the sound of your piano, add rhythm tracks, and add sharp and flat
notes.

Livescribe Desktop enables you to create and store a searchable library of all your Pulse smartpen-created content. From Livescribe Desktop, you can transfer your content directly to your personal myLivescribe user profile on Livescribe Online and upload copies of your notes to browse and share as pencasts. Livescribe Desktop will also let you install and uninstall applications to and from your Pulse smartpen. At the Livescribe Online store at http://www.livescribe.com you can purchase additional pens, paper products, applications, and more.

So is the Pulse/Livescribe Desktop for you? Only you can decide that. But if you need a combo pen/audio recorder/mini-computer and don’t mind the learning curves and expenses, it’s worth investigating further.

The Pulse smartpen is available in two models. Priced at US$149, the 1GB model provides storage for over 100 hours of recorded audio. At $199, the 2GB model doubles the storage capacity and provides more flexibility for adding future applications. Accessories for the Pulse smartpen including leather cases and two-packs of journals in black and red are also available.

Macsimum rating: 8 out of 10

Watch our MiV video review of the Livescribe/Pulse here.

Be sure to check out the Macsimum Valetine’s Day Coupon book below. It has discounts available only to Macsimum readers.

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