14 DAY TRIAL // Back near the start of the month (October 2012), we discovered an interesting product from Livescribe: a stylus that records speech and handwritten notes, in addition to drawing user interfaces on paper and “speaking” back to owners. Sky WiFi takes things further.
In a nutshell, the Sky WiFi stylus is the Echo smartpen with integrated wireless connectivity, allowing users to preserve notes and related audio files online, by accessing WiFi networks and depositing files in the cloud.
Since the pen only has a few gigabytes of its own (at least 2 GB), this can be useful when attending multiple classes or meetings one after another.
November 1, 2012 is when sales of the basic 2 GB Sky pen will start, for the price of $170 / 131-170 Euro, but there will be 4 GB ($200 / 154-200 Euro) and 8 GB ($250 / 193-250 Euro) versions shipping by the end of the year.
The Echo Smartpen will keep selling in the meantime, for much less, but it will be gone from the market by the end of 2013.
We should probably mention that the info on the Sky pen isn't stored locally. While a notebook can receive the data, files are actually stored on an Evernote account, which can later be accessed by any PC, tablet or smartphone.
At some point in the near future, Dropbox, Facebook and Google Drive will become potential storage databases for Sky WiFi as well.
Overall, there does not seem to be much point to purchasing any of the higher-capacity pens, since cloud storage holds everything.
Then again, buying an 8 GB stylus does net customers a year's subscription to Evernote Premium, which normally costs $45 / 35-45 Euro.
"With the Sky wifi smartpen, they can easily capture important ideas, presentations and conversations in the most natural way, on paper, and they automatically appear right where they want them - on their mobile devices and personal computers," said Gilles Bouchard, Livescribe chairman and CEO.
