May 30, 2007
Anoto-based Audio Notebook
Today's NYT has a blurb on Livescribe, the new company founded by LeapFrog's Jim Marggraff to turn the Anoto-based FLY Pentop Computer into a note-taking application for students. His application is basically Lisa Stifelman's 1997 Audio Notebook system but without all the extraneous hardware that was necessary back then: take notes on paper while the pen records the lecture. Tap on the note later and the pen recites whatever it recorded just before you wrote it.
As the article notes, pen-based input has had a long and difficult life, but I've always thought that if anything will be the killer app that brings it into the mainstream, this would be it. If their implementation is good, they've got a chance of really making a big splash.
Posted by bug to Media Technology at May 30, 2007 4:05 PM | TrackBackI wish they'd take it one step further and implement an e-ink based re-useable sheet of paper. Think Etch-a-Sketch, but with the Anoto pattern imaged over the top.
What works with a pen could be further extended to work with a "printer". Print off a chapter of your text to read and annotate, or forms to fill out. When you're done, the pen has already captured it in digital form, so all you have to do is pass the used sheet through the eraser and use the blank page for something else or reprint blank forms for the next person.
Posted by: Andrew P at May 30, 2007 9:09 PMOk, I really want that, in a way that surpasses just the gadget freak impulse. That would be SO unbelievably useful. In some really unconventional ways, too... I'd love it for quick and easy voice memos which were actually easy to record and retrieve (something which my phone makes a nightmare, and it doesn't even do speech to text...) And the translation app makes me drool.
Posted by: Aleatha at May 31, 2007 9:23 PM