The product is the latest paper notebook in Moleskine’s set of Smart Writing planners. The range uses paper that’s strung with writing sensors from Livescribe. When you write with the Livescribe pen, the sensors are able to recognise your movements and create a digital counterpart.
Moleskine previously let you sync handwritten notes using your phone’s camera or by connecting the pen. The content ended up in the Moleskine Notes app though, giving you digital copies of your writing but little more. If you wanted to digitise your calendar appointments, you’d still need to manually enter them online.
TechCrunch reports the new planner will do away with this requirement, instead featuring automatic uploading to popular cloud services. This is a first for a smart writing product, giving Moleskine a unique capability that not even Livescribe currently offers.
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Meetings and appointments you scribble onto your calendar will be synced to your digital account. At launch, calendars from Apple iCal and Google Calendar will be supported. Events will be automatically added to the calendar on the right day and at the time you write down. This simplifies the transition between paper and digital formats.
To enable the syncing, you’ll need both the planner and the Moleskine smart pen. Without the pen, none of the digital features will work. Livescribe’s technology relies on the pen being able to track your movements and record notes as you write them. It then uses character recognition to transcribe the text into digital formats for permanent storage.
The pen is capable of storing up to 1,000 pages of writing in its onboard memory. It’s unlikely anyone will fill it up completely as several entire notebooks would need to be consumed before the limit’s reached. The pen can sync itself to your phone over Wi-Fi so your notes will be ready as soon as you open the app.
Moleskine will launch the Smart Planner next week. The planner itself will cost $29 but to utilise its digital functionality you’ll need to purchase it as the Smart Writing Set. This will set you back $199 but includes the Moleskine-branded Livescribe pen. While the package is clearly not for everyone, people who frequently switch between ink and screen-based formats should find it a compelling smart writing solution.
