Bookish Gift Idea #29: Smart Pen

Imagine this: you’re taking notes at a reading or a lecture, or while thinking aloud about your latest work-in-progress. Your pen records the lecture, and later, you can place the pen on the paper at any point in the notes and hear the lecture at that point.

Doesn’t that sound like magic?

Well, we live in magical times. Smartpens, as they’re called, are a reality and are available for around $100. The New York Times gives the lowdown on one, the LiveScribe Echo, and more have come to market lately as well. Plus, the pens and their programs can help you organize your notes, too. According to the product description, the Echo “saves your notes and recordings to your computer for fast, easy access to what’s important. Search for words within your notes and find what you need fast.” Of course they make great gifts for students, but they’d also be useful for writers embroiled in research, no? And get this: it can even “convert your handwritten notes into digital text”–a huge boon for those who prefer to draft longhand.

The LiveScribe Echo and other smartpens are available through LiveScribe’s website and at many other retailers. And check back here at the FWR blog over the next two days for our last Bookish Gift Ideas of 2010. Who knows–you might find a little something for yourself as well.