computer science

Livescribe

Livescribe is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Livescribe rather than just read about it. In short: Livescribe is a paper-based computing platform that consists of a digital pen, digital paper, software applications, and developer tools. Central to the Livescribe platform is the smartpen, a ballpoint pen with an embedded computer and digital audio recorder.

Key takeaways

Livescribe belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Livescribe to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Livescribe from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Livescribe is a paper-based computing platform that consists of a digital pen, digital paper, software applications, and developer tools. Central to the Livescribe platform is the smartpen, a ballpoint pen with an embedded computer and digital audio recorder. When used with Anoto digital paper, it records what it writes for later uploading to a computer, and synchronizes those notes with any audio it has recorded. This allows users to replay portions of a recording by tapping on the notes they were taking at the time the recording was made. It is also possible to select which portion of a recording to replay by clicking on the relevant portion of a page on-screen, once it has been synced to the Livescribe Desktop software. Jim Marggraff, inventor of the LeapFrog FLY Pentop computer and creator of the LeapPad Learning System, left Leapfrog in 2005 to form Livescribe. In November 2015, Livescribe announced its acquisition by Anoto for $15m.

The smartpen

A Livescribe smartpen is about the size and weight of a large pen (5/8" x 6 1/8"), and is equipped with a removable ball-point ink cartridge, a microphone to record audio, a speaker for playback, a small OLED display, an infra-red camera, and internal flash memory that captures handwritten notes, audio and drawings. The user can choose to record audio in addition to the handwritten text. Recorded audio is kept indexed with the handwritten text—tapping on a written word starts playback of the recorded audio from that part of the recording. The smartpen allows the installation of as many applications as there is memory, and ships with several applications. If tapped on the correct images, it can function as a calculator, for example, or can translate words (the translator software as shipped includes only 21 words in a small selection of languages - as of September 2010 there are no public plans to make a full version of this translator available ). Livescribe has made four versions of its smartpen: Pulse, Echo, Sky Wi-Fi (or Livescribe Wi-Fi), and Livescribe 3. The pens can store about 100 hours of audio per gigabyte.

The Pulse smartpen, released in March 2008, is available with either 1, 2 or 4 Gigabytes of flash storage. It requires a special USB cradle and uses a 2.5mm headphone jack. The Echo smartpen, released in July 2010, comes with either 2GB, 4GB or 8 GB of memory. Compared to the Pulse smartpen, it is less round in shape and uses more standardized connection ports. The Echo integrates with the Desktop software via a standard micro USB cable and can connect to headphones with a more common 3.5-millimeter jack. In October 2012, Livescribe announced the Sky Wi-Fi smartpen, which uses Wi-Fi to transfer the notes and audio to Evernote without using the proprietary Livescribe Desktop software. In the European Union, this product is sold as the "Livescribe Wi-Fi smartpen" due to a trademark dispute with BSkyB. In November 2013, the Livescribe 3 was released. This uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BT 4.0) to store the page content and audio on a smart phone. The physical design made key changes. The OLED screen and the microphone were omitted and the smart phone's display and microphone were used instead. The pen's battery life improved and also still holds the written page content. In 2018 (after acquisition by Anoto) Aegir was released. The Aegir series features designs named after aquatic creatures: Marlin and Dolphin, each available in multiple colors. In 2020 Symphony was released. It featured OCR for converting handwriting to text in 27 languages, 128MB of storage capacity and integration with cloud popular services.

Paper, applications, and sharing

Livescribe's special paper that allows the recording of notes uses a patented dot-positioning system licensed from Anoto.

The pattern As with all Anoto pattern-based pens, the smartpen can only determine its position on the page when used with paper pre-printed with the dot pattern. Livescribe sells notebooks in several styles, and users can also print their own dot paper with a laser printer capable of at least 600 dpi. (A color or monochrome laser printer works.) The Anoto pattern consists of numerous small black dots in patterns that are essentially invisible to the human eye, but can be detected by the pen's infrared camera. The pattern indicates the exact position of the digital pen on the page, and each page has a unique identity so that they can be distinguished from each other.

Sharing Notes and audio can be sent to other users as a "pencast" through the Livescribe Desktop software. The Livescribe Connect service, launched in May 2011, allows pencasts to be sent through e-mail, Evernote, Facebook, Google Docs, and other methods. These can also be saved as an interactive Pencast PDF that can be viewed with versions 10 and higher of Adobe Reader. While compatibility with OneNote 2010 was initially available, LiveScribe has not provided connectivity support for OneNote 2013.

Developer tools Livescribe developed a Penlet SDK to allow application development for the smartpen. The SDK was based on Java, and applications ran directly on the pen itself. Applications could display text and menus, as well as produce audio feedback. A Desktop SDK for Microsoft and Macintosh operating systems was also promised, to allow developers to access files stored on the pen. On June 2, 2009, Livescribe announced the pre-release version of the SDK 1.0 for Windows at the 2009 JavaOne Conference. This was followed in December 2009, with the announcement of the global developer challenge to "...encourage the creation of compelling applications for the Pulse smartpen in 2010 and beyond." On April 27, 2010, Livescribe announced the winners of the Developer Challenge:

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Livescribe

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Livescribe claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Livescribe before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Livescribe ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Livescribe

In research: Livescribe appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Livescribe in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Livescribe is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics American companies established in 2007, Companies based in Oakland, California, Computer-related introductions in 2008, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Livescribe outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Livescribe in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Livescribe means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Livescribe out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Livescribe in simple terms?

Why does Livescribe matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Livescribe?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Livescribe.