Spooky Leapfrog Tag Pen

[PieHoleRepublic]

just let the kids play with it you twat!

[PieHoleRepublic]

"its just paper, paper and card"

[PieHoleRepublic]

LOL nobody gives a shot how it works, its a kids toy, you boring eric authwait

[pekeelvr]

Thank you so much for explaining it because I was wondering about it and now I know thanks again!!

[YOSKIE806]

haha "mom dad wont give me back my pen!"

[DigitalBoyStudios]

Hey There,

I am a product designer at Leapfrog who makes this Tag pen.  The pen has a camera inside that reads a semi-transparent dot matrix that is printed on the pages. Cool eh??

Cheers,

Joe

[svengalie]

Hey Joe,

Clever indeed, I think I made a video explaining it when I zoomed in with my usb microscope on the dots. I definitely made the vid, not sure if i uploaded it or not.

Clever stuff, cool job.

[avanderen]

Very cool Joe! Thanks for making such awesome toys for our children! You have helped to put smiles on many little faces! :-)

[Briglair]

yeah that thing is very weird

[rousp1]

It's probably radioactive! =P

And yes, that was a joke!

Would love if you showed us the technology behind it all!

[chunkylover48]

Lol he made the vid for you =D

[rousp1]

Yeah.

Sven is a great guy, you know!

[igoronline]

Its probably RFID

[williambrodie]

Magnetic ink, its used in money too, thats so money counting machines can tell the differenc between £20s and £10s. The library in the Uni of Brighton stamps the books with magnetic ink and if you dont put the book on their system b4 taking it out the alarms go of at the door

[svengalie]

Actually, it's a lot simpler than that. This wasn't a video asking how. Seems I was misinterperated, maybe I should do a video showing how. It's actually very clever.

[227paddy]

Cool product. I think a good aid for learning.

I'm gonna research this one.

(You have kids!?- unbelievable!)

[svengalie]

The sexual side of those womenfolk is most enlightening, you should try it sometime.

[Blaze0303]

I'd assume it's special ink.

[Bamabubba]

O and BTW Sven. I just dropped in from the link posted by Mordeth and subscribed. Hope you and your family had a great Christmas and that yall have a great, happy and healthy New Year.

[overlord200218]

I'd think its very small microchips embedded under each word, microchips can be made SO small now that you can't see them

[LuckySlevin7]

Oh cool!!!

It's that new radioactive marker technology that gave all those test candidats cancer.

...But I thought it got outlawed in the rest of the world...

Lucky you I guess, you got your hands on some of em for your children.

Happy new Year Sven!! I wish you and your family good health and a long life.

a long life.

[13mordeth]

It's satanic magic....congratulations fucktard. You just gave your kids a devil pen.

[YellowSSS]

Exactly what I was thinking!

[AviBaby18]

LOL!!!

[Bamabubba]

LOL Mordeth. My 5 year old got this for christmas as well Sven. She has the same two books. 8) I also bought her two more books for it as well...opps,I mean Santa brought them to her.;) It is a very good product isnt it. And my younger sister acted basically the same as you,when she saw it.

[starzship]

cool!!!

[robinphillips]

cool toy, nice choice ... no idea how that works, must be a devil toy ;-)

[stefmax]

Merry Christmas!

[1tvirus]

the pen tip acts as a scanner the ink in the book is magnetic much like what happens when a scanner reads a personal check

[jamiebridges123]

Happy xmas to you and your family Sven.

I think it's something to do with the special books.

[peeteey]

Apparently the pages have special dot patterns in the pages that the small infrared camera on the end reads and thus knows where it is on the page at all times, but only on the books in the Tag reader collection.

Very cool toy!

[pixuma]

probably magnetic ink

[jdbodean2]

It's FM. (fricken magic) How else can you explain it. Or maybe macro coding. (same thing)

[eyedontno87]

you can also touch the pen to the dots before each page and it'll read the whole page for you... kinda cool

[Nastjonaslastjona]

It's a kinda magic...magic...magic... mmm, interesting wether it's really gonna help a child to read I don't know, but can be quite fascinating(for a while) My child is 5 and in 2 month at school she learned to read quite good, so maybe now she can read her god damn Dora by herself!))

[roschler]

I just got one of those. Haven't unboxed it yet but I'll give it a look.

[sunnyjason]

I think there is a reader or something at the bottom so it can read the invisiable codes printed on the words.

it's not infered cuz every camera can pick up infered.

[fla2002]

I thought it was some sort of magnetic ink, UV toner, or something of the sort. Now to spoil the magic, turns out the pen scans for high resolution dot patterns on the page. Very Cool!

[Sis363]

I think it's not a good tool for kids to learn how to read. When they have something reading for them they are not going to bother with finding out how to spell it. You know kind of like the cell phone the numbers are programmed so you no longer have to know them by heart. just like the reader you have. Wouldn't it be horrible if the kids couldn't read if they didn't have the reader. No offense but I don't think that's a good idea.

Sis.

[ndewhurst12]

Yea the thing is they always have a really fucking annoying voice speaking out whatever word it is. The kids want to learn to read to stop that bloody voice and maybe to impress their dad.

[svengalie]

I apologise, you're right, there's a mini camera thing up there which if i cover it doesn't work...

[svengalie]

How is infrared going to work out which page it's on? Or where it is on the page? Or indeed which book?

Spooky!

[Briichu]

Ha, well that was interesting.

[stimpman]

Possibly some sort of Barcode type text in the book?

[lwkleijn]

ther must be some hidden microchips:)

[steffcrombie]

Wow! Would it be sad to say I want a magic pen?

Yes, yes it would.

[hord]

maybe there is some font difference or some UV?

My nephew got one of these for christmas and it baffled me too!

Please investigate this more, i must know!

[svengalie]

I'm sure a google search would tell you, that wasn't exactly the point of the vid for me :)

[gorlestonboy]

Sven it's all done by magic, you just have to believe it. But It only works on childrens books and only lasts about 2 weeks after Christmas day!!! Happy New Year to you....love your bloggs

[Galilee1000]

Barcodes, either in graphics or in the black areas?

Anyway, it's done optically. There is that black area on the bottom of the pen.

[dg4rez]

the words are very micro bar codes written in special ink and the pen has a camera... it tells it what voice to read, and what word it is. hope that helps. -dg4rez

[Jahnsie]

maybe the pen recognizes the colour?

[REEDSBUD]

How does it know what voice to use as well?? RF I.D.?? Merry Christmas Sven!!!

[svengalie]

Ahh well you "add" the book to the pen via a usb software...

But my point is it's just hitting bits of ink on a page...How does it know which page? And I don't press any buttons to tell it I switched books.

Clever.

[REEDSBUD]

Funny thing is, kids won't be intrigued in the least by this, but it sure baffels adults!

[panik011]

lol wow some of the stuff for kids now is pretty cool, wish i had that when i was younger :P would have made reading a lot more interesting