Photos: Pens get smarter

The latest digital pens are a far cry from the earliest attempts to add a brain to the standard Bic. But the question remains: will these new devices be more than a curiosity?

This week, Irvine, Calif.-based Iogear announced plans for a digital pen that can work with standard paper. Last month, educational computer maker LeapFrog introduced the FlyFusion, its second go at the digital pen. And later this year, Silicon Valley start-up LiveScribe plans to introduce a $200 device that can not only take digital notes, but also synchronize them with an audio recording.

Iogear's Digital Scribe pen (pictured) works with any piece of paper, but requires the pen to be connected to a computer for the writing to be digitized.