I had never heard of this, so I decided to look at it. Within 2 minutes of looking at their site I decided it was not for me.

http://www.livescribe.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Catalog.woa/wa/getItem?id=ANA-00017

"Each single subject notebook has 100 college-ruled perforated sheets. Perfect
to take to classes and meetings. The Pulse™ smartpen only works with Livescribe™ dot paper. Use
it to activate all smartpen applications."

You get four 100 page notebooks for $19.99, not a ridiculous price, but being proprietary like that would not work for me. I can carry a pen around with me, but I don't carry a notebook...

http://www.livescribe.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Catalog.woa/3/wr?wodata=ANA-00017_product_0

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A friend showed me this last year when it was the geeky hit demo of JavaOne. While undoubtedly cool, I had a hard time finding the useful application for it in the real world. Yes, if you are basically transcribing a lecture, where *someone is talking* and *you are taking notes relevant to what is being said*, then the idea of remembering the audio context of what you wrote is a good thing. Absolutely.

Now. How many times a day do you do that? If you're a college student, sure. If you're in the sort of business where you take lots of notes, absolutely. But as a general purpose note taking device? Not so much.

The fact that it requires special is just par for the course, all of these devices do that.

I was far more intrigued with the "Fusion Pentop Computer" which is actually more like a toy /homework assistant marketed for kids. Much cheaper, but has many of the same ideas.
Source(s):
http://www.flyworld.com/

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