Smartpens Improve Notetaking Listening Skills

Livescribe's Echo smartpen pulls handwriting -- the epitome of manual labor -- into the digital age.

For many of us, documents don't exist until we can manipulate them, until we can cut, paste, post, or tweet the text.

So a pen that can scan microdot-covered paper, read every inked-up coordinate, replay what we heard when we jotted words down, and later, lets us upload them to a computer is a sublime monument honoring old school and new technology.

For me, smartpens offer the best of both worlds. I hate missing words, so I record everything. But I hate transcribing as well. When I forget my Victor Reader Stream and write interview responses longhand, I relish the efficiency of skipping that step.

With a smartpen, you can write, record, and -- most importantly -- access sections by tapping on words. The pen hears all, but writing makes you a more active listener, and a better note-taker.