My new toy is a Pulse SmartPen, made by Livescribe. Details here:
http://www.livescribe.com/It has a lot of features, but probably the main ones are:
1. Saves everything you write onto the pen, then you upload it to your computer, where it is digitized and searchable.
2. Can record audio and associate it with what you've written; e.g., Matt starts talking about "phylocode"; I write down "phylocode" and record him - later, if I touch my pen to where it says "phylocode," I can hear what he had to say on that subject (and there is a similar function for the digitized version on your computer).
Potential uses:
1. If you're like me, and keep a notebook of random research thoughts or more sustained thoughts and reading notes when you're starting a new project, it's nice to have that digitized and searchable. Yes, as much as I am on a computer, and as fast as I type, there are some times (and places!) I prefer handwriting.
2. Listening to someone's presentation -- you could copy down a diagram while recording audio, and the two would be associated. Or, you could just have your notes act as "bookmarks" to the presentation or parts of the presentation.
3. Ditto for department meetings and other fun service stuff that professors do.
4. Need I mention that this is useful for students, too?
Drawbacks:
1. You have to use special paper (but you can "make" your own if you have the right sort of printer -- I haven't tried this yet).
2. They don't yet have OCR for the mac -- that is, your handwriting is searchable, but it's not translatable to text just yet for the Mac. (The Mac software is still in beta).
3. They use their own proprietary format, though the digitized handwriting is exportable to PDF.
I'm still learning the ins and outs, so my view may change, but right now I am pretty excited about it.
Roberta
