In the James Bond movies and espionage TV shows of the 1970s, the height of spy technology was the “miniature” camera, a palm-sized box that the hero would use to snap photos of top-secret documents. The super-spy was also equipped with a wristwatch that was really a communicator, and a tiny tape recorder that could capture the villain’s foul plans (which the villain always took the time to explain to the hero in great detail, thus ensuring his own failure).
Remember that in those days, whenever the police had to summon Batman, they had to aim a circular beam of light through a bat shape at the sky.
These days we can do all those spy tricks with a cell phone. Not even the top-of-the-line phones, but the ordinary ones you can buy in any store. Those of us who grew up in the ’70s and ’80s are lucky because most of our childhood technology fantasies have not just been fulfilled but exceeded. True, we have not yet sent astronauts to Mars, or terraformed the planets in our solar system to make them suitable for human habitation, or figured out how to teleport people without the risk of fusing their DNA with that of flies, but much of what was science fiction has become fact.
So when I saw the video display for the Pulse Smartpen at National.
Bookstore, I thought that another one of my childhood tech dreams had come to life. I’ve always wanted a device that could translate audio into text. You speak into it, or you record a lecture, and then you plug it into your computer and voila, the sounds appear as words. My friend Juan says a software that can do this already exists, and it will probably be commercially available soon. When I saw the Pulse video, I thought this might be it.
The Pulse Smartpen records everything you hear and write, and you can listen to the recording by tapping on your notes. Wow, I thought, but my expectations were soon dashed. Yes, the Smartpen from Livescribe records everything you write — on a notebook with special dot paper, also available from Livescribe. Something any old ballpen and notebook can do, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
The Smartpen records everything you hear — while you’re writing your notes. This is very useful if you are in your Calculus class and your professor had three frappucinos for lunch and is trying to break the sound barrier. While you’re scribbling the notation on your dot paper notebook, your Smartpen is taping everything the professor is saying.
Or you might be at a conference where the eminent speaker is giving a very long presentation about tin production in Uzbekistan, in a monotonous tone that causes everything within 50 meters to lose consciousness. As you struggle to stay awake by writing “50,000 tonnes” — you’re so bored you’ve taken to spelling in French — your Smartpen records every word that passes Mr. Exciting’s lips. Unfortunately you’ll have to listen to those words again.
The Pulse Smartpen does not convert the sounds into text. What it does is sync your notes with the audio recording. This way when you read your notes and tap on the page, you can listen to what was being said at the time. Essentially it’s a pen that’s a digital recorder.
This audio-plus-handwriting function is useful for class lectures, office meetings, product presentations, interviews, and other activities where you have to take notes. It is much less useful if you are writing in a quiet room, or in a noisy restaurant. For instance, I started writing this column with a Smartpen while listening to The Smiths. The audio playback has Morrisey singing, “As the flames rose to her Roman nose and her Walkman started to melt.” What does this have to do with the “Gadgets” column? Absolutely nothing, unless you like to make note of the ambience.
You don’t have to write and record audio at the same time, you can do them separately. You could take notes and make drawings with the Smartpen, then save them on your computer and export them as PDF files. Something you can do with ordinary pen and paper — scan or photograph what your wrote, then save it as a jpeg.
You could also record a talk with the Smartpen, then save the recording on your computer as an audio file. I record interviews on my phone, then upload the amr files to my computer. My point is, then Smartpen isn’t a step forward technology-wise; more like a hop sideways. It’s cute and portable, Mac and Windows compatible, with two GB of memory (about 200 hours of audio), but I expect much more of a pen that costs P11,999.75.
The Smartpen also lets you do “pencasts” online. Notes and drawings can be uploaded to www.livescribe.com, where they are converted into Flash movies. Smartpen users get 500MB of free space for storing notes and sharing them with the Livescribe community. Basically it’s blogging with your own penmanship.
In an effort to make the product appear really hi-tech, the manufacturer promises 3D audio. “True to life audio that places you in the moment,” the instruction sheet says. They say “3D,” you think, “Avatar.” Naa-ah, what it means is that if you say the words as you write them, while snapping your fingers around your head (The instructions do not explain how you can write, talk, and snap your fingers at the same time), you get a surround-sound effect. Oh, puh-leaze. Your dad might like it.