The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.Note Taking Software
This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. The Pulse Smartpen, when it comes out tomorrow, will sell for $150 to $200.Ĭopyright © 2008 NPR. So that's a pretty big thing.įARIVAR: The moleskin's also a bargain. So - as opposed to my fanciest cell phone, which every time I drop it, 100 bucks to change the screen. ALEX PANG (Director, Institute for the Future): Well, one thing, I can drop my moleskin a whole bunch of times and nothing happens to it. His job is to forecast future technologies, but he still prefers to take his notes with a pen and one of those moleskin paper notebooks. But fanciness aside, many people still prefer the sheer simplicity of pen and paper, even Alex Pang, who's director of the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto.
And three - three - three - three, I'll write NPR.įARIVAR: All of this can be downloaded to your PC using a docking cradle. MARGGRAFF: You're going to hear audio coming out of a speaker, which is being sent out from a pen which we just recorded.
The digital recordings are linked to the words you write down, so later on you can tap the word in your written notes and the pen will play back the audio you recorded at that time. At the other end of the pen, there's a microphone. A tiny camera mounted by the nib captures the motion of the ink and records what's being drawn or written. Marggraff says you can print out this dotted paper at home using a laser printer. Four is pulse.įARIVAR: The pen has its special powers when used on a certain type of paper printed with tiny dots. MARGGRAFF: If I start to write on the paper - so I'll write Cyrus, C-Y-R-U-S. JIM MARGGRAFF (CEO, Livescribe): So if I now take my pen and I touch record at the bottom of the page, you'll hear a sound.įARIVAR: Marggraff is the CEO of Livescribe, the company behind the Pulse Smartpen. He has a new invention called the Pulse Smartpen.Īt first glance, his device looks like a large, fancy ball-point pen. See you then.įARIVAR: Entrepreneur Jim Marggraff is trying to merge all these note taking tactics - writing with the hand, recording sound, and sharing the information digitally. It's a laptop with a screen that you can write on using a stylus. No one's using a tablet PC, but that's another device on the market. Others are still using plain old pen and paper. The computer's for me.įARIVAR: Other students in the classroom are holding digital recording devices to capture the words of the lecture.
GIORDANA PEPPER (Sophomore, University of California Berkley): I'm a very fast typer, and it helps because I can pretty much catch what the professor's saying and I just go at it. Unidentified Woman: Here you see a (unintelligible) in what's known as a Skinner box.įARIVAR: Sophomore Giordana Pepper is sitting near the front row with her laptop open. And today, there is a divide between people who take notes with electronic gadgets and those who use old-fashioned pen and paper, or just write on their hands for that matter.Ī company in Oakland, California is trying to bridge that gap, and we have more this morning from Cyrus Farivar.ĬYRUS FARIVAR: At the University of California Berkley, an Introduction to Anthropology lecture is just getting started. We are, by the way, a species of note-takers.