This week’s tech column, courtesy of Tribune Newspapers:
If Watson, IBM’s cognitive computer and “Jeopardy!” winner, were taking notes while working with students at Ohio State University this summer or dreaming up another barbecue sauce recipe, it’d probably reach for a Livescribe 3 smartpen.
In human hands unaccustomed to a technologically adroit writing tool, however, the Livescribe 3 instantly dazzles with its sleight of pen. This faux fountain pen, with an actual ballpoint tip, records handwritten notes and transfers them, in real time, to a compatible Apple device synced via Bluetooth. It adds corresponding audio when the note-taker touches the ballpoint to record-pause-stop icons on special Livescribe “digital” notebook paper, activating the iPhone-iPad-iPod Touch microphone.
