US-based LeapFrog is a leading designer, developer and marketer of technology-based educational products and related proprietary content. Its products are sold in more than 25 countries around the world.

The technology developed by Lund-based Anoto for transmission of handwritten text from paper to digital media and scanning of printed text is at the core of the LeapFrog’s new product, the FLY pentop computer.

A user of the FLY platform will be able to write on a piece of paper and then interact with the writing directly on the paper. For instance, a FLY pentop computer user can draw a calculator, touch the handwritten digits and functions to perform an operation – then hear the answer announced from the FLY platform. A user also can write a word in English and hear it translated into Spanish, or draw a piano keyboard and play it.

“We have high expectations for the FLY pentop computer and we see very strong potential for the platform long-term. Anoto was the ideal technology partner as our product research on how writing aids creativity and thinking progressed. We were convinced that a pen that could read and respond to writing was the right product for LeapFrog,” says Jim Marggraff, LeapFrog’s Executive Vice President of Worldwide Content.

The FLY pentop computer will be sold in the United States in consumer electronics sections of select retailers in Autumn 2005 at a suggested retail price of around 76 euro.

More information: Leap Frog