Fly (pentop computer)

The Fly Pentop Computer and FLY Fusion Pentop Computer are personal electronics products manufactured by LeapFrog Enterprises Inc. They are called a "pentop" computer by its manufacturer, because they consist of a pen with a computer inside.^[1]

In 2009, LeapFrog discontinued both the manufacture and support of the device and all accessory products, such as notepads and ink refills which are required for continued use. The inventor of the FLY Pentop, Jim Marggraff, left LeapFrog and founded Livescribe in January 2007.

The Fly, released in 2005,^[2] is a customizable pen that is intended to assist children with schoolwork. There are several bundled and add-on applications available, including a notepad, calculator, language and writing assistant, and educational games; many of these require the use of a small cartridge that can be inserted into a port built into the rear of the pen.^[3] The Fly only works on its own proprietary digital paper, which is lightly printed with a pattern of dots to provide positioning information to the pen via a tiny infrared camera. The ink tip itself can be retracted into the body of the pen when no physical notes are desired.^[3]

The pen uses digital paper and pattern decoding technology developed by Anoto to track where the user writes on the page. It uses Vision Objects' MyScript character recognition technology to read what's been written, and can read aloud nearly any word in U.S. English. One notable thing is that the Fly uses only capital letters. To start the main menu of the base pen, the user writes "M" and circles it. After recognizing the circled "M", the pen switches to "menu mode".^[4] There are several different circle-letter codes for activating different applications, these codes are officially known as "Fly-Cons."^[1]

Once an application is activated, the user uses the pen to draw on the paper to interact with the application. In much of the applications, users are told what to draw, rather than having the freedom to design their own.^[4]

LeapFrog vendía varios tipos de papel diferentes con los que se podía usar el lápiz, a menudo junto con un cartucho de programación relacionado. ^{[ 5 ]} El papel podía incluir instrucciones especiales para usar el lápiz, así como modificaciones estéticas que reflejaran el tema para el que estaba destinado. ^{[ 6 ]}

Las actividades disponibles para Fly incluían un traductor de español , software de ortografía y matemáticas, y un diario personal . ^{[ 5 ]} Las actividades para el lápiz Fly venían en paquetes que incluían un mando de juego (una hoja de papel digital diferente) o un cartucho. El uso de un mando de juego comienza con el usuario "descargando" el juego del papel deslizando el lápiz a lo largo de una Fly Strip , que recuerda a un código de barras . Los juegos disponibles incluyen Batman Begins , un juego de béisbol "Flyball" , el Mapa del Merodeador Interactivo de Harry Potter y un juego musical de DJ llamado "Scratch".

Muchos críticos del ordenador han señalado el tiempo que tarda el lápiz en reconocer correctamente la entrada del usuario. ^{[ 5 ]} Asimismo, algunos han criticado la falta de pantalla, ya que la retroalimentación sonora y las luces son la única forma de obtener respuesta de los dispositivos. ^{[ 5 ]}

• Papel digital
• Lápiz digital
• Computación con lápiz

Notas

• "flyworld.com" . Archivado del original el 5 de marzo de 2012. Consultado el 1 de abril de 2012 .{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: estado de la URL original desconocido ( enlace )
• Ordenador portátil LeapFrog Fly Fusion. Archivado el 26/07/2008 en Wayback Machine (PCmag.com).
• Molly K. McLaughlin (25 de julio de 2007). "Primeras impresiones del ordenador portátil FLY Fusion de LeapFrog" . Gearlog . PC Magazine. Archivado del original el 9 de diciembre de 2010.
• https://web.archive.org/web/20101225022112/http://www.diraction.ch/livescribe/docs/Livescribe_FAQ_111909.pdf