Thursday, March 27, 2008

I've joined the Leapfrog Fly Fusion Generation:



I've become an avid user of the Leapfrog Fly Fusion Pen, a fat pen that remembers what you write so that it can be OCR'd into computer text. This pen does a lot of other things as well, it's really nifty. I think it's targeted primarily at young teenage girls, but it fits my need. I've been looking for convenient ways to do some writing that winds up in my computer files. It's not always convenient to carry a laptop. Cell phones with keyboards are too cramped. The Leapfrog solution is cheap, under $100, but I could not believe I was going to give it a try. Most of my life, my handwriting has looked like the scribble you see above. My mother (as my wife reminded me), expected that computers would make handwriting obsolete. For many years, I have written (or printed) almost nothing other than my signature and occasional illegible notes. Could I learn to write - with the Leapfrog pen - anything legible enough to be converted to computer text? (Hint: I use an onscreen keyboard with my PDA.)

The answer is a surprising yes. I'm getting faster and more accurate, little by little. I still can't believe that the clear printing above is me. But it goes through Leafrog's OCR very well.

By the way: I learned about this pen on Episode 386 of the Daily Giz Wiz. Thanks, Leo and Dick!

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