Up-to-Date Technologies for Journalists
Well, what do you write with: a usual pen? Soon you might be using a smartpen. Such a device with a connection to your notebook, tablet or telephone via WiFi has already been created. It can save what you write in a note-taking application right on the fly. Meet the Sky WiFi smartpen by Livescribe.
A Stroke Upon the Features
First of all, all notes you take are sent wirelessly to your Evernote account, including the audio recordings taken. The pen has an integrated microphone, a speaker and some gigabytes of memory, so you can record a lecture or a public speaker not only in a written form, but in an audio file as well. A minor inconvenience is that you have to use special paper for the text tracking feature to work. The device orients upon microdots pattern as if upon a map.
That’s How it Works
Secondly, as everything is saved in one place and has an electronic copy, the data is easily shareable. This might be useful for students, who can exchange the notes and, in this manner work separately upon one project, being freed from the necessity to decide upon meeting time. On the other hand Evernote is not everyone's choice. If you are a regular user of this service this is a handy upgrade, but if not – you'll have to spend some time on accustoming to it.
Specialized Notebooks
Lastly, there are no cables, which is extremely comfortable: as nothing interferes with the process of writing. Still there is a fly in the ointment: the pen's size. On the one hand, the developers have created an ergonomic design and covered it in soft-touch grip, but on the other, there is a WiFi module, a memory stick and other parts inside, which make it rather huge in size. So, despite its ergonomic design it might be too large for a tiny woman's hand. In this respect it is less universal, than it seems to be at a first glance.
The Printed Controls
Finishing Touch
The idea of the device is great: to have your notes synced with the audio file, so that you have the maximum possible amount of information from a meeting, a lecture or whatever else. What's more, the data is easily manageable because of the synchronization. At the same time, the device is less universal than desired, because of its size. Hopefully soon the technologies will go so far that all the features will be put inside an ordinary (approximately 7 mm wide) pen. But if you want such a device right now, get ready to fork out about 250 dollars for an 8-gigabyte memory pen and enjoy the toy.
