The Smartpen Blog

September 4, 2009

Livescribe 2GB + MyScript Offer Finishes – Should we bring it back?

Filed under: livescribe — Mark Parker @ 8:21 pm
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Over the past few months we’ve been running a really great offer whereby the Livescribe Pulse 2GB Smartpen has been bundled with MyScript for Livescribe. Our regional distributor organised this for us and it’s been very successful (thanks John!).

But all good things must come to an end – or do they?

We’re currently investigating whether we extend the special offer or even create a special offer or special bundle.

We need your feedback.

If you purchased a Pulse Smartpen how important was it for MyScript to be included?

Should we extend the offer?

What are your thoughts?

August 10, 2009

Livescribe Exhibiting at Education Forum in Sydney and Newcastle

Filed under: livescribe — Mark Parker @ 4:04 pm
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I’m pleased to advise everyone that Smartpen, in conjunction with the team from Livescribe and BigAnt will be exhibiting at the Assistive Technology in Education and Employment 2009 Forum in Sydney and Newcastle in a little over a week’s time.

The event is over 2 days as follows:

I’m really excited about this two day event as we’ve done a lot of work this year helping institutions, teachers, and students understand how Livescribe can help them with their studies.

We’ve got a really nice offer for anyone who wants to purchase on the day (a big discount), and we’ll also be giving away a pen each day for anyone who stops by and drops a business card into our prize bowl.

If you’re in Sydney or Newcastle and involved in education or you’re supporting students who have learning disabilities then I’d love to meet you at one of the two events.

  • We’ll have both PC and Mac computers set up to demonstrate Livescribe
  • Both computers will have MyScript for Livescribe installed so you’ll also have a chance to see how the MyScript transcription software works
  • You’ll be able to purchase the Livescribe 2GB Pulse Smartpen at a nice discount to RRP

Over the two days we’ll be blogging live from the events, we’ll keep the Twitterverse up to date (search under #assisttechforum) and we’ll also post photos from the venues onto Facebook.

July 30, 2009

Livescribe Feedback from the Business World

Filed under: livescribe — Mark Parker @ 11:56 am
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We captured a couple of interesting piece of feedback via Scout Labs today. It relates to how Livescribe is used in the business community – given we’re seeing strong demand from the business world I thought these comments would help prospective customers understand the value of the Livescribe Pulse Smartpen:

I got my pen a few weeks ago and I love the thing, it makes my exec and operation meetings easy as to track. It also helps clear up disputed points later on as I can replay for people exactly what was said and when :-)

I also no longer madly try and scribe notes to my self, I will just right the topic being discussed and replay it later for further review this lets me control and get the most out of my meetings. I also got the transcription software so I just give my notes to my PA as a word document and she cleans up any transcription errors and gets the minutes out way faster now then ever before.

Diomedes, via Whirlpool

Two points stood out here for me. Firstly, Diomedes has found he/she is able to contribute more to meetings because the focus is less on writing things down and more on active listening and contribution.

Secondly, by using MyScript, Diomedes is able to streamline the capture, transcription, and distribution of meeting content much faster. This is a point we make to many senior executives. Feedback we’ve had from PA’s indicates that they find Livescribe and MyScript very easy to use and it reduces the instances of “Are you sure that’s what we agreed?”

Thanks Diomedes for sharing this feedback

January 6, 2009

MyScript for Livescribe

Filed under: New Tools — Mark Parker @ 4:57 am
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I wrote last year about changes to the Livescribe desktop application. In that post I mentioned MyScript for Livescribe. MyScript is a new third party software application that is integrated into Livescribe Desktop and allows you to take your Livescribe written content and translate this into Word documents.

We like the product.

This blog post is an example of what MyScript finds when you send Livescribe content from the Desktop over to MyScript. As a side note, I think the page I was writing on had some smudges as the Livescribe page is missing some writing strokes that I can clearly see on my Journal.

This screen capture is an example of the MyScript user interface – the panel on the left is the page from Livescribe Desktop, while the panel on the right is what MyScript has transcribed.

Myscript Example

MyScript is very simple to use. One feature I like is the 1 button push to send to Notepad. It means I can drop from MyScript into Notepad and then cut/paste into the WordPress WYSIWYG new post editor.

I think MyScript for Livescribe would be a very useful addition for students, PA’s, project managers etc.

November 18, 2008

Livescribe Desktop Upgrade – Exciting News

Filed under: New Tools, livescribe — Mark Parker @ 1:00 am
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We’ve received some exciting news from Livescribe regarding the planned upgrades to the Livescribe Desktop application. Version 1.4 will be released on November 24 in the US, so Australian customers will be able to download this from Tuesday the 25th.

Firstly, a Beta version of the Macintosh version of the Desktop will be available. This is good news as we’ve had a lot of enquiries from Mac users and we have a number of customers waiting for this release. If you’re a Mac user, Gizmodo has already had a look at the Mac version and seem pretty happy.

The really exciting news is that version 1.4 (due this month) will provide OCR capabilities via a new release from MyScript (a Vision Objects product). The features of MyScript include:

  • Send your handwritten notes directly from Livescribe Desktop to MyScript for Livescribe for conversion to text.
  • Use your personal dictionary to add names, terms and abbreviations for even more accurate conversion.
  • Convert handwriting, shapes, drawings and tables into print.
  • Edit the resulting digital text directly in My Script for Livescribe application.
  • Edited results can be sent to Microsoft Word or another word processor, to a text file, to your default email application or saved as a picture file.

We’re currently talking to Vision Objects about adding this application to our portfolio. Hopefully we’ll have some news on that shortly.

We installed the trial application earlier today and it doesn’t let you test any of your own content. So we’re installing the paid version and we’ll run some tests on the technology and let everyone know the results.

Finally, Livescribe are giving people the option of printing their own dot pattern paper with this release. I’m sitting on the fence on this one for a couple of reasons – the main one being the type of printer required to print the paper. I’ll also create a post on this on the 25th once we have the new verison.

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