There were doubts when Jim Marggraff came up with the idea for Livescribe's smart pen, which records speech and linome were skeptical about the technology and whether, for example, it could capture audio without the noise of the pen scratching on paper. Others wondered why people would even need one.ks it to handwritten notes.
But five years later, the Oakland startup has raised more than $100 million and sold about 1 million pens - none of which record that pen-scribbling sound. Last year, Livescribe made it possible for users to share their notes on Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Dropbox and other online services with a few taps and scrawls of the pen. It plans to roll out additional features this year that take advantage of the popularity of the iPad and other tablets, as well as the increasing use of cloud- or Internet-based technology.