In gadget-head circles, one of the most buzz-worthy new products this summer is the Pulse pen: a ballpoint pen that simultaneously records both your handwriting and the sound of the words you are transcribing. Both get transferred to a Windows PC when you return home — seemingly a perfect setup for lecture-hall students, journalists and note-takers of any kind.
Well, perfect except for one thing: the Pulse pen doesn’t work unless you write on special paper. Thousands of tiny micro-speckles tell the pen’s tiny camera where it is on the page as you write, but that limits you to writing in notebooks that you buy from the Pulse company. No back-of-the-envelope brainstorms, no legal pads allowed, no using your own letterhead.
Pity, then, the two entirely buzz-impaired cordless digital pens from other companies that can write on any paper at all. The Mobile Digital Scribe from Iogear and the ZPen from Dane-Elec can capture your notes no matter what you’re writing on. The notes appear on your Windows PC as a digital image, which you can convert into typed text for copying or e-mailing.
To be fair, these pens are not as sophisticated or ambitious as the Pulse pen; they do not have microphones, cameras or little screens. They do not record audio and do not accept add-on programs. But if you just want to capture notes and drawings in the field and then transfer them to your PC when you get home, the “any paper, any time” feature might sound attractive, indeed.
Now you can venture forth to meetings or classes without having to fool around with the weight and fragility of a laptop, and still wind up with your notes safely ensconced on the computer.
You also, in effect, create a safety copy of everything you write. If you lose your class notes,…