By Claire Reilly

With the use of tablets and online cloud storage services on the rise, digital smartpen manufacturer Livescribe has announced the launch of a new product that brings modern technology to traditional note taking.

The company yesterday announced the launch of the Sky Wi-Fi Smartpen, which allows users to take written notes and voice recordings which can be stored in the cloud and played back from a laptop, PC or tablet.

As with previous Livescribe smartpen models, written notes are synchronised with audio files so that the user can reach a particular point in a recording by tapping on a written part of the page. However, thanks to the addition of Wi-Fi and Livescribe’s partnership with online file storage and sharing site Evernote, the Sky pen can then automatically push these notes to an online notebook for accessing anywhere.

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In Australia to launch the new device, Livescribe co-founder and executive vice president Sasha Pesic said that, despite more consumers using digital connected devices, the world of pen and paper is far from gone.

“If I’m a tablet owner, do I still care about note taking? Do I still care about pen and paper? The answer is yes,” said Pesic. “Tablet owners place a high importance on their notes, and they want to do things with them.

“We are now in a post-PC device world and, most recently, in a cloud world where devices are connecting themselves to the cloud to provide services and value to consumers.

“Our vision is that every person that uses a pen today will be using a wireless smartpen in the future that’s connected to their digital devices.

“So the value proposition that we bring to the customer is, it’s your words, your ideas, anytime and anywhere. So you can capture notes as you’ve done before, seamlessly link your notes to the audio that is recorded as you write and then transfer that securely to the cloud where you can access them after the fact.”

There are three models of the Sky Wi-Fi smartpen available. The 2GB model (capable of recording up to 200 hours of audio) is available for RRP $229, the 4GB smartpen (with 400 hours of audio recording) is available for RRP $275, and the 8GB smartpen (capable of recording up to 800 hours of audio) is available for RRP $345, which includes a notebook folio and a one-year subscription to Evernote Premium, which offers users extended services online.

The smartpen will be available from Officeworks from next week, along with accompanying notebooks and paper products. A representative from Livescribe said the company was in talks with other retailers, but details are still to be confirmed.

The Sky Wi-Fi Smartpen.

With the help of Wi-Fi connectivity, the Sky Smartpen automatically syncs handwritten notes to an Evernote storage account in the cloud.