Livescribe Sample Page & Audio

As I was sitting on the plane last night ready to fly home, I thought I would try out the Livescribe writing and audio recording and sync.

So as we were taxiing and listening to the flight safety presentation I wrote some notes and recorded the audio.

You will  see that the writing changes colour as the audio progresses. That is indicating the progression in the audio file in relation to what was written.

This allows you to jump to sections of audio by tapping the pen on the paper on a word or by clicking on the word when viewing it on a PC.

Overall I think that it is pretty useful and would be good to upload to share with people from a meeting for example, after a meeting you could upload the file, send an e-mail with everyone that was at the meeting and share the notes & audio with them. Sharing can be done privately or publicly.

Have a look for yourself and tell me what you think (I know - my writing and spelling stinks!).

Here is the page and the audio recording.

  Brad

Livescribe Smart Pen – Now In Australia

It appears that the Livescribe Pulse smartpen has made it’s way discretely into Australia, and it appears that I have bought one of the first in the country.

As I was driving home from a meeting last night (Tuesday the 7^th October) my wife rang me to tell me that there was a new Officeworks brochure that had been delivered (no, she doesn’t usually ring me for such banal things). The interest in this Officeworks brochure was the fact that on the front page, dead center and occupying the largest part of the page was a digital pen. In fact it was a Livescribe Pulse Digital pen or smart pen as they call it.

They are on sale for $199.

Needless to say that I have been trying to get my hands on one of these for awhile now and I was quite excited about  the prospect of getting to try one out. So as it was about 6.30pm I swung via an Officeworks store on my way home to see if I could get one.

In the store I looked around but couldn’t see them, so I asked one of the staff and he told me that they weren’t going on sale until tomorrow (Wed 8^th October).

I had a bit of a chat and asked really nicely (it pays to be nice to people) if I could possibly get one. He told me that they hadn’t even opened the boxes yet and hadn’t set up a display etc so I wouldn’t be able to test it. I explained that I was quite familiar with the technology and I assurred him that I didn’t need to test it out to see what happened. Needless to say, he agreed to go and find one for me, which he promptly did. So it would appear that I have purchased one of the first Livescribe digital pens in the country (or at least in Queensland).

There hasn’t been much fanfare in regards to the release of the system here in Australia. I am a subscriber to the Livescribe newsletter and regularly check their website, but nothing has been announced there. I wonder if they are just testing it out before they go for the big release.

It appears that Officeworks has exclusive access to the Livescribe pen, at least for now.

I haven’t had much time to play with it as I am currently sitting on the 5am flight from Brisbane to Melbourne, (I’m off the plane now, have a nice cup of coffee from Hudson while I upload this) but from the brief exposure I have had, it seems to be a pretty easy to use device. The pack comes with:

·         1 Pulse Smartpen,

·         1 set of stereo headphones (which have built in microphones to generate 3D sound),

·         2 spare ink cartridges,

·         a stylus (which is very handy – it is the same size as an ink cartridge but allows you to draw & write without leaving ink on the page),

·         a USB docking/charging,

·         a 100 page note book with gadgets and a pen carry case.

My first impression was that there was no lid for the pen & no clip, so you can’t actually carry in your shirt pocket. This seems to be a fairly serious oversight in my mind. It might not be a problem for the student market where it is probably not cool to have a pen in your top pocket, but if they are trying to gain traction in the corporate/executive market, then I do see that as a barrier to easy use.

I will write a detailed review of the system shortly when I have the time to play thoroughly, however here are some initial observations:

·         Pen is a great size, much thinner than the Logitech IO2, Nokia and similar size to the Maxell digital pens.

·         It has a small screen on the pen that shows relevant things such as time, date, battery charge level, and the handwriting recognition (although that is very limited). They also have some nice little demos using the video and 3D sound they use.

·         No Bluetooth – therefore no sending files via mobile device – docking station only.

·         No output to Word or other word processing tools by the look of it, it keeps it as image only – but does allow you to search for terms that you have written. That search ability indicates that they do handwriting recognition, so maybe the output to Word will come in a future release.

·         Very easy to set up with a great little quick start guide. The quick start guide is even printed with the Anoto dot pattern, so you use the pen on it to set up date, time and even whether you are left or right handed.

·         Pen gadgets – these are printed bits of paper with things such as calculators and sound & video demos. The calculator is cool, tap in the query on the calculator and the answer is displayed on the screen.

·         Translation demo. This could be a hugely powerful tool if they can get this right. There are about 20 words in their demo suit that you can translate into Mandarin, Spanish, Arabic and Swedish. Tap the language box on your demo card and then write the word, it will automatically translate the English word into the selected language and play that out of the pens speaker. If/when they can get a full vocabulary for these languages, then it will be sensational for overseas travellers. Imagine sitting in a café in Shanghai and writing that you want a beer and some spring rolls – simply write it down, tap on the words and they are read out to your waitress.

 Just to clarify - the Livescribe Pulse Smartpen uses Anoto digital pen & paper technology. This is the standard for all quality digital pen solutions.

Overall, it seems like a great package, technically a great product with a lot of uses and future scope.

I’ll go through some greater details soon.

View a sample Livescribe text and audio I did while listening to a flight safety presentation here.

Brad

NEW - fireMAX to be Launched at Fire Australia 2008

fireMAX, the first stand alone fully featured product from Datateq is officially being launched and showcased at the Fire Australia 2008 show next week in Sydney.

fireMAX is a complete scheduling, testing and reporting solution utilisiing digital pen & paper technology for the fire protection industry.

fireMAX is a unique system providing real time testing to be done utilising digital pen enabled log books. This in itself is not unique, however, what makes fireMAX unique is it’s powerful automated schduling system and recurring maintenance planning. Simply enter the annual certification date of a property, and all the required test are automatically scheduled for the life of that contract. The results of each test is also posted directly back into the recurring maintenance planner so you can quickly and easily identify the status of each test, see what requires immediate follow up and even see which tests have been missed before the technician has left site.

fireMAX delivers instant test results and reports while it simplifies all processes of the testing administration.

Learn more about fireMAX.

See us at Fire Australia 2008, Australian Technology Park, Eveleigh.

Digital Pen Cuts Mammogram Analysis From Hours To Minutes In France

The Digital Pen & Paper technology has achieved another tremendous success in reducing waiting lists for breast cancer screening by significantly shortening the time it takes to analyze mammograms. The digital pen has been implemented in France’s “Plan Cancer” program to combat this growing public health concern.

Since 2003, France offered a systematic and organized breast cancer screening for women between the age of 50 and 74 contributing to regularity of screening tests. An alarming 40,000+ new breast cancer cases reported each year inspiring the program which participates are invited to testing via a mammography ever other year. A women’s anxiety rises with waiting for breast cancer results.

“The Digital Pen & Paper provides a way to get medical information quickly into our data base and this increases productivity by cutting down the time used to assess all that we have to do,” says Richard Lepec, MD, a public health epidemiologist in the southwest midi-Pyrénées department of Haute Garonne. “For the patient, there is less waiting time and that’s the main point.”

While women with positive breast cancer results have received quick notification, women with negative results used to wait three to four weeks for mammogram results. French law requires two mammogram interpretations when results are negative to ensure patient health and safety.

The Digital Pen & Paper is integrated with NeoScope information transfer software developed by EpiConcept, headquartered in Paris, supporting the second review, serving as a mammogram x-ray review and data transmitter thereby effectively communicated in five to seven days negative results.

A radiologist and then a second expert review the collected data thus fulfilling France’s mandated second examination. The expert reviews the examining radiologist’s notes and scrutinizes the mammogram, using the digital pen capabilities. The pen remembers what is written or drawn with help from a digital camera, and this data is transmitted back via Bluetooth/USB to a PC or back-end server where character recognition is performed on it. Normal turnaround times of up to three hours were reduced to less than 30 minutes. This means that breast cancer screening centres using the digital pen will be ready for the second stage of France’s national ‘Plan Cancer’ program, set to start early in 2008.

The previous procedure used to be performed by administrative staff without any medical training, and was prone to errors - a risk that has been virtually eliminated by the use of Digital Pen & Paper (DP&P). A visual check of the digital forms is now only required in less than five per cent of cases, giving the DP&P-based solution an accuracy of more than 95 per cent.

Faster processing of the results means that screening centres can meet the legal requirement of sending out results within two weeks of the examination, and schedule new appointments more quickly.

One of the health centres that has implemented DP&P technology is in the French Département of Haute Garonne. Dr Lepec, commented: “For us, the time reduction that the digital technology has brought us means that we can initiate the new screening program earlier. After 15 months’ experience of DP&P technology, the data transfer has become almost 100 percent reliable. No working routines have been changed and the system has been functioning without interruption.”

The digital pen is now used in 12 of France’s 90 Departments. This year alone, around 200,000 mammograms have been performed with the help of DP&P technology in France. On average, each Department runs 30,000 breast cancer scans every year. The long-term objective is to equip the 45 Departments who perform the most scans with DP&P technology.

Digital Pens Help British Airways to Take Off on Time

British Airways is using the Digital Pen & Paper technology to help keep to its flight schedule at London’s Heathrow airport. The digital pens enable aircraft dispatchers to communicate mission critical information securely from airside directly to the control centre, ultimately allowing the plane to take off on time. Lynda Findlay, senior co-ordinator, planning and control, at British Airways commented: “The digital pens and the new system have modernised the way we do things and brought us one step closer to a harmonised way of working, at T5.”

The Digital Pen & Paper was chosen over several other technologies for its portability and long battery life. In addition, the paper maintains the ability to have signed documentation which is required to meet Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) regulations and audit purposes.

In the past, dispatchers had to transmit flight load information to the operations team prior to take-off using a variety of ‘slow-tec’ methods with the associated risk of missed take-off slots, disgruntled passengers and possible fines.

With the Digital Pen & Paper, the process now takes only seconds: dispatchers simply use a digital pen which contains a small, built-in infrared camera that reads handwritten information and transfers it to the airline’s back-office systems via a mobile phone.

How it works

Dispatchers fill in an A4-size form that is printed on an almost invisible dot pattern which the digital pen can read. The information stored by the pen is then transferred via a Bluetooth-enabled mobile handset to the airline’s IT systems, where it is processed and made accessible to the pilot and the dispatch team as a secure webpage. This process only takes a few seconds, speeding up the dispatching procedure while also making it more manageable: as dispatchers never have to leave the aircraft-side during the turnaround; they can supervise the whole operation at all times.

“In addition to the user-friendly, robust and highly mobile nature of the solution itself, the instant feedback that the handset gives the turnaround coordinator is a really useful feature. It provides certainty that the information has been transmitted properly - in an area where such certainty is an absolute ’Must’ for BA”, says Neil Clark, Head of IT, Airline Operations, British Airways Information Management.

We Exhibited Digital Pens at ASIAL

We exhibited digital pens at the Australian No.1 security show - ASIAL at the Sydney Convention Center in Darling Harbour from 26th to 28th of August.

Aimed to get as many visitors’ attention as we can, we created a competion/data capturing Entry Form for this show. Visitors can fill in the form by using a digital pen, after they tick “Send”, they can see their name and handwriting/drawing appear on the screen in front of their eyes in a matter of seconds.  This is a simple way of demonstrating what we can do to help field service staff to send their forms back to the office in real time.

This clever idea attracted over 300 visitors who were clearly intrigued and amazed by the magic digital pen and paper technology. Many people from field service industry got excited and could not believe such “magic” application exist and how dramtically it can improve their field staff work efficiency.

As for the entry form itself, we can replicate it as a powerful marketing tool for data collection and promotion. We hope ambitious marketing people  can be inspired and work with us to create some awesome marketing applications.

Anoto Digital Pen and Paper Healthcare Applications Presented at the TEPR 2008 Health Information Technology

Anoto Group, the inventor of Anoto Digital Pen and Paper technology, gains incredible momentum in the healthcare sector as evidenced by the five sessions where renowned healthcare experts demonstrated unique Digital Pen and Paper applications at the 24th Annual TEPR (Towards the Electronic Patient Record) Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on May 19-21,2008.

Among others, Dr. Rothstein (medical Director of Bethesda Medical Associates in Washington, D.C., and past Director of the American Board of Emergency Medicine) illustrated how Bethesda Emergency Associates at Suburban Hospital is using a Digital Pen and Paper charting solution called BartCharts to substantially improve workflow, accuracy of patient medical records, and quality of care delivered.  Using familiar pen on paper charts, BartCharts enables patient information to be electronically captured, verified and uploaded to the hospital’s EHR system.

Anoto Group AB provides digital pen for Groupe Hamelin’s new digital whiteboard product Papershow

Swedish technology developer Anoto Group AB (OMX Stockholm: ANOT) said on Monday (4 August) that it has landed a EUR0.95m order for digital pens from the French stationery and office supplies manufacturer Groupe Hamelin.

The order covers Anoto Group’s third generation digital pens for inclusion as a component in Hamelin’s new Oxford Papershow digital whiteboard product.

Papershow, comprising an Anoto digital pen, a Bluetooth USB key and interactive paper, will be available in retail distribution in October.

Hamelin is the first customer for Anoto Group’s yet to be launched new generation digital pen.

Anoto Group, headquartered in Lund, Sweden, develops digital pen and paper technology enabling the fast transmission of handwritten text into a digital format. The company has some 110 employees in Sweden, the US and Japan and reported a turnover of SEK169m in 2007.

There is no known distributor for this product in Australia. We will keep you posted on that.

Nokia Buys Symbian - Donates to Open Source Business

In what can only be good news for Digital Pen users around the world, Nokia has recently bought all the shares in the Symbian operating system that it did not already own, and will contribute that to a new not-for-profit open source organisation called the Symbian Foundation.

Others joining the Symbian Foundation will include Sony-Ericsson, Motorola, AT&T, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone.

The significance of this is that the Symbian Foundation will allow the Symbian mobile O/S to be open source allowing all players to develop devices based on the Symbian system.

From a digital pen providers point of view, this is good news indeed as the more widely accessabile Symbian is, the more likely it is to be used on a larger range of phones and mobile devices.

The Symbian OS in our opinion is the best for digital pen applications and products as it allows full customisation of the router application that we install on the phone, and allows us to perform functions such as autostart that are not supported on Java O/S phones.

You can read a more detailed article here.

Anoto buys the Covelus Routing Technology Source Code

A press release from Covelus (digital pen & paper router developers) today.

It appears that Anoto is bringing a lot of third party technology back in house. My guess would be that this is a better solution for them to control the licensing of their technology. By controlling as many parts of the chain as possible they will undoubted have the ability to ensure that people are not taking `shortcuts’ when it comes to their licensing.

“Today we are announcing the sale of all their Routing Technology source code to Anoto AB.

Covelus Router and CCS will no longer be available for purchase or support from Covelus, but instead all related enquiries should be directed to Anoto from today.

This agreement is seen as the perfect solution for Covelus, Anoto and the partner network moving forward.

Anoto will continue to run the hosted CCS for 6 months from now, whilst they package a new router offering. In that 6 month period, there will be no charge for any mapping licences (both hosted & standalone customers) - they will be free, and instead Anoto will sell pen hardware/licences in the same way as normal.

Please email product.inquiry@anoto.com with any questions.

Covelus wish you the best of luck with your digital pen projects in the future.”