The Fly is a personal electronics product manufactured by LeapFrog Enterprises

Leapfrog Enterprises

LeapFrog Enterprises Inc is an educational entertainment company based in Emeryville, California. LeapFrog designs, develops and markets technology-based learning products and related content for the education of infant through grade school children at home and in schools internationally.- History...

 Inc. It is called a "pentop" computer by its manufacturers, and is essentially a pen

Pen

A pen is a device used to apply ink to a surface, usually paper, for writing or drawing. Historically, reed pens, quill pens, and dip pens were used, with a nib of some sort to be dipped in the ink. Ruling pens allow precise adjustment of line width, and still find a few specialized uses, but...

 with a computer

Computer

A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...

 inside. The company claims it is the first of its kind.

In 2009, LeapFrog discontinued both manufacture and support of the FLY Fusion Pentop Computer. This included a halt on all accessory products such as notepads and ink refills which are required for continued use of the pen. The inventor of the FLY Pentop, Jim Marggraff, left LeapFrog and founded Livescribe

Livescribe

The Livescribe paper-based computing platform consists of a digital pen, digital paper, software applications, and developer tools.Central to the Livescribe platform is the smartpen, a ballpoint pen with an embedded computer and digital audio recorder...

 in January 2007.

Description

The Fly is a cosmetically customizable pen that is intended to assist children, especially those aged 7 – 14, with schoolwork. There are several bundled and add-on applications available for the pen, 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. The Fly only works on its own proprietary 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.

The pen uses digital paper

Digital paper

Digital paper, also known as interactive paper, is patterned paper used in conjunction with a digital pen to create handwritten digital documents. The printed dot pattern uniquely identifies the position coordinates on the paper...

 and pattern decoding technology developed by Anoto

Anoto

Anoto Group AB is a Swedish technology company which has invented, developed and licensed a product line of digital pens and a product suite to manage information capturing utilizing these . The Anoto Group has around 110 employees...

 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

U.S. English

U.S. English is the umbrella name for two American political advocacy groups founded in 1983 by Senator S. I. Hayakawa and Dr. John Tanton to advocate the adoption of the English language as the official language of the United States of America....

. 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". There are several different circle-letter codes for activating different applications, these codes are officially known as "Fly-Cons."

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.

Applications and add-ons

LeapFrog sells several different types of paper with which the pen may be used, often in conjunction with a related programming cartridge. The paper may include special instructions for using the pen, as well as cosmetic alterations to the paper reflecting the subject for which it is intended.

Activities available for the Fly include a Spanish language

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 translator

Translation

Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...

, spelling

Spelling

Spelling is the writing of one or more words with letters and diacritics. In addition, the term often, but not always, means an accepted standard spelling or the process of naming the letters...

 and mathematical software, and a personal journal

Diary

A diary is a record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. A personal diary may include a person's experiences, and/or thoughts or feelings, including comment on current events outside the writer's direct experience. Someone...

. Activities for the Fly pen come in packs that include a game pad - a different piece of digital paper - or a cartridge. Using a game pad begins with the user "downloading" the game from the paper by swiping the pen along a Fly Strip, reminiscent of a barcode

Barcode

A barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data, which shows data about the object to which it attaches. Originally barcodes represented data by varying the widths and spacings of parallel lines, and may be referred to as linear or 1 dimensional . Later they evolved into rectangles,...

. Available games include Batman Begins

Batman Begins

Batman Begins is a 2005 American superhero action film based on the fictional DC Comics character Batman, directed by Christopher Nolan. It stars Christian Bale as Batman, along with Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Cillian Murphy, Morgan Freeman, Ken Watanabe, Tom Wilkinson,...

, a "Flyball" baseball

Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

 game, Harry Potter Interactive Marauder's Map, and a music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

al game.

Response

Many critics of the computer have been swift to point out the length of time required for the pen to correctly recognise input from the user. Also, some have pointed out the difficulties of not being able to see a screen; this results in constant redirection.

However, excluding these criticisms, the average response from reviews has been positive.