Pulse pen: a do-it-all digital writing/transcribing aid

I don’t know about you, but I love new electronic gizmos.

Livescribe has introduced Pulse pen, which records audio and also digitizes whatever you're writing, while keeping track of what exactly you were listening to while writing.

The pen's power is in letting you review written notes that are synchronized with audio. When you tap what you've scribbled or drawn on the special "dot paper" Pulse works with, you'll hear any audio you recorded while you were writing. You can search notes on your (Windows-only) PC by typing in a word and having Livescribe's software find a written match. Pulse also functions as a basic digital audio recorder.

The Pulse is powered by a Samsung ARM processor, and will eventually be able to provide much more interactive and powerful applications. Right now beyond the audio and handwriting capture, there's not much more than a calculator, but there will be translators and internet-connected applications soon.

While the Pulse comes with what looks like a regular notebook, it's actually plain paper which is embedded with a pattern of tiny dots which facilitates the handwriting recognition. There's an infrared camera which then captures the patterns which lets you upload all your important notes. Pulse can translate written English words into Arabic, Spanish and other languages

The 1 GB Pulse is $149, and the 2 GB model is $199, but you need to sign up for a special pre-order program to order one right now at www.livescribe.com