Communicating audio and writing using a smart pen computing system

A computer program product for displaying audio and writing recorded using a smart pen, the computer program product comprising a computer-readable storage medium containing computer program code for:

• receiving a message containing:
• audio data comprising audio recorded by the smart pen, and
• synchronized writing gesture data comprising writing gestures captured by the smart pen, the synchronized writing gesture data being synchronized with the audio data;
• and
• responsive to a user request to play the message:
• animating the synchronized writing gesture data, and
• playing the audio data in synchronization with the animating of the synchronized writing gesture data.

A pen-based computing system for capturing and displaying writing and audio, the system comprising:

• a smart pen device comprising:
• a microphone configured to record audio and produce audio data based thereon,
• a gesture capture system configured to capture writing gestures made with the smart pen device,
• a processor configured to associate writing gestures made during the recording of audio and produce synchronized writing gesture data based thereon,
• a storage medium,
• instructions contained on the storage medium and capable of being executed by the processor, the instructions for sending a message to a destination computer system, the message comprising the audio data and the synchronized writing gesture data, the destination computing system based at least in part on message recipient data;
• and