Leapfrog Talking Pen 176
AndroidCat writes "Leapfrog has just announced their Fly pen computer for children. It talks, giving feedback as they write and draw, and with special Fly paper, you can draw a calculator, press the 'buttons' with the pen and it will read the answers. Cute, but is this a real working product? Let's see. If they included a 1 GB USB drive, it would be an interesting product for geeks too--just don't write fdisk. And remember to turn off the voice when making notes during meetings." Here's a picture of the device.
Practical applications (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to mention a few crafty programmers and this could be a great tool for around the house.
or practical joke.
neat, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Just how "smart" is this thing? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:neat, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally, I wouldn't. But, based on the number of Leapfrog toys we own already, I am sure my son's Grandparents, Uncles, Aunts and various other hangers-on would be more than happy to purchase one for him.
Re:Too Much Technology (Score:1, Interesting)
I love computers, programming and geek stuff, but it's like schools giving laptops for free to children, it's either broken or filled with games in less than a week.
Are you sure about this? I think it's worse than this: you can't educate children with computers because the info that is given is filtered to 10% of what would be a real course. I've seen history lessons taught with laptops: animated gifs and almost empty texts (but we're lucky, they forgot the wav files).
You will have to learn the old-school way: take a book and read!
Re:Logitech io pen for kids? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:BSO... (Score:3, Interesting)
Y'know, that brings up an interesting point that I'm wondering now... Think they'd incorporate any easter eggs into this thing? You'd think that someone involved with the project would have thought that something like that could be funny.