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The device is expected to cost less than $200 and make its debut before year's end, the company said when it first discussed the product at the D: All Things Digital conference in May. LiveScribe declined to provide an update or comment for this article.

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LeapFrog, meanwhile, introduced its $79 FlyFusion at the end of July. The device is a sequel to Leapfrog's first Fly. The last generation was a standalone device that used specially coded paper to enable youngsters to draw a calculator and then add up some numbers or draw a piano and then play music.

The new pen is cheaper, $79 versus $99, and about 25 percent smaller than its predecessor. "It really looked and felt like a toy," senior brand manager Chad Weiner said of the first Fly. Still, Weiner said, the original "sold surprisingly well," though he would not give specific sales figures.

This time around, LeapFrog is aiming at slightly older youths, adding the ability to take digital notes and then connect them back to a Windows PC, where they can be either saved or e-mailed as images, or converted to text (with the results varying widely based on the penmanship of the author).

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For Iogear's Wells, the digital pen has been a labor of love. He's tried out devices since 1992, when he got his first one after graduating high school. That first model, which he took with him to Cypress College in Southern California, cost $300, required special paper and was tethered to a big plastic piece that sat under the paper.
Over time, though, the technology has improved. Wells said Iogear connected a couple years back with a chipmaker that had the technology that would work with any ink or paper.

"We thought it was about time," he said. "We thought we can really make a run now."

One thing all the new products have going for them is that they come at a time where Windows' support for digital ink has never been better. With Windows XP, only the stylus-based Tablet PC edition really supported pen input. With Windows Vista, though, the operating system supports more kinds of ink, including that from tablets like those from Wacom, as well as things like Iogear's Digital Scribe.

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Livescribe 1GB Pulse Smartpen