Livescribe Echo: No Country for Old Pens

Ever since the first caveman scrawled on a wall with stone, people have been looking for a way to improve the writing process. This eons-long evolution has brought us to the Livescribe Echo—a pen that moves handwriting into the digital domain.

The Echo, which sells for $199 (8 gigabytes) or $169 (4 gigabytes), is the second generation of Livescribe's so-called smartpens. It writes like any other pen. When applied to special paper, however, it digitally captures a precise image of your handwritten notes, sketches, and doodles. It also has a sound recorder for meetings and lectures.

To save your handwritten pages, the Echo requires paper with a faint pattern of powder-blue dots—a technology developed by Anoto, a Livescribe partner. (The tiny camera below the nib uses those dots as reference points.) Livescribe offers on its site—and at retailers such as Best Buy - special notebooks and Moleskine-style bound journals, usually sold in two- and four-packs for between $8 and $25.

Sure, $199 is a lot for a pen—particularly one without a GPS to keep you from losing it. That said, it's a useful tool for doctors, executives, and academics (as well as college students) who still need to write things down.