Video Games on a Pen

The Livescribe Echo Smartpen works like a regular pen with extra features. It can record audio with its microphone and play it back on its speaker. When used to write on special paper, it synchronizes your notes with the audio recording. For example, a student could go to class with this pen and paper and take notes while recording the lecture. Later, back at their computer, they could upload all of the notes to the computer directly from the pen, and click on a specific part of the notes to replay that part of the lecture for studying.

It is great technology - and it uses a tiny computer within the pen to make it all happen. A programmer decided to write some programs for the pen itself: tic-tac-toe, and Zork ("you are standing in a field near a mailbox..."). Watch as the pen plays these games against the programmer. Who knows, next we may be comparing tech specs on our pens - "mine has more memory and a faster processor than yours".