Livescribe Pulse Smartpen records heated Delta / airport conversation, leads to chaos
By Darren Murph 
posted February 21st 2010 9:37PM
posted February 21st 2010 9:37PM
Whoa, Nelly! Talk about a whale of a story. Ben DeCosta, Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport's general manager, loves gadgets. So much, in fact, that he purchased a Livescribe Pulse Smartpen, which is capable of recording audio onto its 4GB of internal storage space. While details on the story remain murky (disputed by both sides, actually), it's fairly clear that Ben and Delta didn't exactly see eye-to-eye on everything. To that end, Mr. DeCosta figured he could flip the recorder on during a private conversation between airline executives and personnel from the city of Atlanta, and now the whole thing seems to have backfired. Ben maintains that he didn't intend to record Delta's negotiations, and he even went so far as to suggest that Delta stole his pen in order to discredit him. In the end, the city's investigation found that there was "insufficient evidence that DeCosta intentionally sought to record the private conversations of Delta's team," but that's not stopping Ben from retiring when his contract expires in June. Hit the source link below for the whole drama-filled thing, but unfortunately, the discussions held on the pen have yet to leak. TMZ -- you on that, or what?
In other news, the Lower Merion school district in Pennsylvania has started distributing Livescribe pens to all of their high school students.
@mikethebigo
LMAO
@mikethebigo
"BEEP"..."Recording"....."Pay no attention to the pen"...
i don't get why this is tech news.. recording equipment was involved in a dispute between a person I've never heard of and an airline company. am I missing something? particularly why this is a whale of a story?
@safe travels The pen is tech.....duh.
@safe travels
well obviously the pen is 'tech' but that doesn't automatically make it worth reporting on. the enthusiasm for something that seems almost irrelevant just seems somewhat.. odd. would engadget have reported on watergate if it were around back then? recording equipment has been around for a century, and has been causing this kind of problem almost as long, why is it news now?
@safe travels
You must be new round 'ere parts. :)
@safe travels
Today was such a slow news day that engadget must post about these things.
@safe travels I thought it was a pretty decent late evening "filler" article with tech in it. sure it wasn't skynet worthy but every story cannot be the next hottest gagdet...I liked it.Curious to see how Delta negotiates myself.
@southern78 fair enough, that makes sense. but ' Whoa, Nelly! Talk about a whale of a story.' isn't the way to start that kind of an article...
@safe travels it is a Sunday night. not exactly prime hours tech news. i found this interesting enough though.
@safe travels For me, this is relevant. I considered getting one of these a while back. I'm a consultant and work in government departments and the only thing stopping me was that it's illegal to record meetings in government departments without consent. I couldn't really see myself asking everyone in the meeting if it's OK if I record them.
@safe travels
go fuck urself
Idiot photographer completely missed focus on the cute, bookish girl and got that damn pen, instead...
@WhyFi
It makes her arm look ridiculous!
it def is news. again i agree with kojo87. its sunday and not much is goin on in the world of tech, but its something to keep engadget goin. honestly i only looked at this article because the i know Ben DeCosta. Definitely a very intelligent person. Not one to get caught up in stuff of this nature lol.
Here's what I got out of the article:
Cute blonde girl with glasses...dispute....something, something, pen.
I liked the article. This happened to me. Some people didn't know I was using the pen and chased me down after a meeting to demand that I erase the conversation. It's amazing how many underhanded things are said and then denied later ;-)
Don't worry, they updated the pen's software so even if you wanted to transfer the audio you can not anymore. It's ridiculous and everyone that updated has this problem.
Whoa!...So he is a she? The plot thickens in this diabolical story.
In Boston, all of MA actually, it's unlawful to record without the consent of others. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/02/02/man_arrested_for_taping_police_sues_city_officers/
@allston232 Yes, but if you read the article it clearly says that if one party consents in Georgia, then it's legal.
The problem is, he left it behind when he left, so it was recording when he wasn't in the room, so nobody there knew about it to be able to consent.
@allston232
Corruption is the foundation of the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson airport. Kickback's, bribes, dirty politicians (ok, the only type, I know)... it's all there.
It's very unfortunate that in some places you can get in more trouble for recording someone without telling then, than the the other person can for what they actually say. That seems backwards.