Digital stuff is great, but I’ve got to admit, it’s pretty easy to have someone jot down an address or directions on a piece of paper. Trying to enter that into your phone, PDA, or laptop is a little tougher, but chances are, you’ll appreciate having that information there later on. You can now, fairly easily, do both with Logitech’s io2, a gadget we’ve mentioned briefly before.

The io2 is a digital pen. While it writes just like any pen you’ve used before, it actually records what you write on it’s special digital paper. When on that paper, the io2 can optically read all that you’ve written. Not only can you record notes, but you can also record any sketches you write (directions, descriptions, charts). All in all, you can store up to 40 pages of notes between syncs and you can go up to 8 hours without a recharge. Once you’re ready to get your notes on the computer, you use the docking station and the io2 software to easily transfer them. If you’re not happy with just having an image, you can use OCR software to translate the image into text that you can edit as Word or text document. The only negative to this product is, as I said earlier, the need for special paper. Fortunately, there’s a good variety of formats you can get, from Post-its to full size notebooks to tablets. All of them are at fairly reasonable prices, not as cheap as normal paper, but close.

For $150, you can pickup the Logitech io2 starter kit. This includes the digital pen, the docking cradle, and a digital notebook to start you off.

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