iDictate – Digital Voice Blog

Have you ever finished a phone call and thought gee I wish I could have recorded that conversation? Maybe you are a journalist and regularly interview people by phone or you have regular business meetings by phone?

The TP-7 telephone pickup mic from Olympus is a microphone that can be used with any Olympus digital voice recorder to easily record phone conversations. It can be used with any phone – mobile, office phone even a pay phone.

Olympus TP-7 Telephone Pickup Mic

The TP-7 connects via the jack plug to any Olympus digital voice recorder, the other end fits in your ear like a iPod earbud. It then sits neatly between the phone and your ear while you hold the conversation. It can directly pickup the audio from the phone speaker usually held to your ear and also from your spoken words all recorded easily to the voice recorder.

Quite a neat gadget from Olympus and a popular product with journalists. Officially this works only with Olympus voice recorders but I have heard of people with Sony’s using it also.

Philips 9162 Telephone Pickup Mic

Philips has something similar and is called the 9162 telephone pickup mic. Slightly cheaper than the Olympus it comes in a nifty pouch with spare ear bud cushions and a retractable cord. It follows the same principal by fitting in your ear making it compatible with any phone you use.

The Philips 9162 can be used with the Philips Digital Pocket Memo (DPM) series, Philips Digital Voice Tracer (DVT) series, analog pocket memos and the Philips 955 conference recording system.

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We have just received our demo LiveScribe Pulse SmartPen in the office ready to produce some reviews and video demos for both Mac and Windows users. There has been a buzz about this product in Australia for while now on the WhirlPool forums and also on Twitter which is where I heard about the product.

The SmartPen is a computer inside a pen, while you write your notes in the special LiveScribe Dot Paper notepad the built in camera records exactly what you are writing. If you also record audio at the same time, e.g. if you are in a lecture, meeting or conference the audio is linked to what you are writing at that time, word for word. When you review your notes in the notepad you simply tap on any word that you wrote and any audio recorded at that moment is played back, as they say on the LiveScribe website you “never miss a word”. Your written notes and audio can also be uploaded to your PC or Mac and the notes and audio played back on your computer. You can even share your notes and audio online.

Here is a short promo video from LiveScribe with a quick overview of the SmartPen. We will post more videos in the near future showing you the features and the functions of the SmartPen on both Mac and Windows in the near future as we prepare ourselves to supply and support this product within Australia.

Dictate Australia will be selling the LiveScribe Pulse SmartPen from May 2009 – Click here for product information and pricing.

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