• Macworld »
• Macworld Expo

Livescribe Pulse Smartpen

Livescribe's Pulse Smartpen gives you the ability to record sound and synchronize the audio with your written notes, giving context to your handwriting. Wondering why you wrote something down (or even what you wrote)? Click on a piece of text and the audio will jump back to the exact moment in the recording when you wrote that word.

To take advantage of the text and audio features, you must use the Smartpen with Livescribe's dot paper; the tiny dots on the paper are used by the pen as points of reference for the audio. The dot paper notepad that comes with the pen has pre-printed controls on the bottom of each page that resemble something you'd see in GarageBand. These controls allow users to fast-forward, rewind, jump, pause, speed up, or slow down the audio. Livescribe sells various notebooks and journals with the dot paper, but you can also print your own pages for free on a color printer.

[1GB model, $149; 2GB model, $199; final Livescribe Desktop Mac software available on February 17.]