Livescribe Unveils Android App for Its Latest-Generation Smart Pen

Though most consumers own a mobile device they can use to take notes, “60 to 65 percent of us still prefer pen and paper, and 20 percent type with a keyboard,” Gilles Bouchard, CEO of the paper-based computing platform Livescribe, told us in a London briefing. “So let’s not fight, let’s join them.” Bouchard was previewing a new app that lets owners of smartphones and tablets with Android 4.4.2 or newer use them with the latest Livescribe 3 capture pen. Previously, the pen worked only with iOS devices. The smart pen captures text as it is handwritten in a Livescribe paper notebook, while Livescribe’s Android app stores a synchronized sound recording of anything being said at the same time on the Android device. So students, for example, can jot lecture notes while recording the lecturer. The text is displayed on the device’s screen and tapping on a written word triggers playback of whatever was being said as the note was written. Unlike the original Livescribe Echo and Pulse pens, the Livescribe 3 smart pen has no on-board screen, mic or speaker for audio capture and play. That functionality is now handled by the Android device. The pen uses a Bluetooth Smart data link to connect to multiple devices, and can deliver up to 14 hours of continuous writing on one charge. Recognizable words are digitized in the Android device for searching and saving. Users can also share notes and recordings as PDFs that play on other mobile devices or computers. The Livescribe 3 smart pen has a USB socket for charging only, not data transfer as in the previous pens. Bouchard demonstrated the system with a Nexus 9 tablet and it worked well. We then tried the pen with a new upmarket Huawei P8 smartphone and also with the low-cost Hudl 2 tablet heavily promoted in the U.K. by Tesco. The system was easy to set up and use with the P8, but we couldn't get it to work with the Hudl. Livescribe said it’s investigating why.