Students who have difficulty with taking notes during lectures may finally have a solution.
The LiveScribe Smartpen allows students to simultaneously take notes and record audio on special dot paper.
The product debuted Thursday at a Vanderbilt Student Government dinner discussion. Because Vanderbilt is a flagship school for LiveScribe, students will have future opportunities to hear about the product on campus.
With built-in microphones, speakers and a small display, the pen allows students to tap a line of written words to listen to audio of what was recorded while those words were written.
"The LiveScribe Smartpen will especially help blind students," said professor Andy Van Schaack, the product's senior science adviser. "But all college students can benefit from it, too."
With a $300,000 National Science Foundation research grant, Van Schaack was able to make the pen a reality. The Smartpen is expected to ship in the first quarter of 2008 with an estimated cost of under $200. Included with the pen are binomial headphones that can record from far away distances in three dimensions, extra ink cartridges and a notebook with dot paper.
However, the pen does more than just record lectures.
"The Smartpen is very efficient from a professor's point of view," Van Schaack said. "When I grade papers, I can record my comments in the margins and students can then tap into them and listen to my comments. For the same amount of time I spend in grading papers, students can gain more insight by actually hearing the professor talk about certain sections of their papers."
Notes can also be uploaded to a computer and shared via the Internet to other students. Developmental kits will be available for students and companies to make their own programs and study sheets.
"You can also work on creative expression with the pen," said Karen Lee, marketing manager for LiveScribe. "You can draw pictures while recording a song by Kanye West. These expressions can also be posted on Facebook."
Founded by LeapFrog's Jim Marggraff, LiveScribe formed in May 2007 with a management team that includes personnel from Apple, Palm, IBM and Leapfrog. The pen uses established technology from the Swedish company Anoto, which helped produce the microdot pattern on the paper.
As with any new technology, the developmental team faced the challenge of fitting a microprocessor with enough memory, a speaker and a microphone into a reasonably sized pen. However, the Smartpen is much smaller and compact than its predecessor, the Fly Pentop Computer from LeapFrog.
Students anticipate the result of their efforts.
"I think the Smartpen is great," said junior Andrew Smith, a student representative of LiveScribe on campus. "Especially in classes like calculus where you have to draw diagrams, you can go back and listen to the professor speak about the diagram."

Click here to see a video of the Smartpen at work.