LeapFrog Tag Reading System

LeapFrog Tag Reading System

The Tag Reading System brings books to life. Easy to use, amazingly responsive and small enough for a child to take anywhere, the Tag reader takes just one touch to make words talk and pictures sing. A small, sophisticated infrared camera at the tip of the reader reads letters, words and symbols printed on the special dot-patterned pages of books in the Tag reader collection. The Tag Reading System is built around a custom, mixed-signal ASIC designed by LeapFrog, that incorporates a 32-bit RISC processor, DSP driven stereo audio system with multi-channel MIDI hardware, specialized control logic and power management functions. The Tag reader’s proprietary operating system allows this compact device to perform myriad specialized functions; including absolute position detection, game logic processing, event logging to monitor users’ progress within the content, and high-quality real-time audio decompression and playback. Designed for children aged four to eight, the Tag Reading System works with a diverse library, including activity storybooks with popular characters. Kids can continue to use the Tag system as their knowledge grows, choosing to hear an entire story read aloud, hear it read line-by-line or hear individual words. Using the LeapFrog Connect Application designed for the Tag system, parents can download each book’s audio, then drag and drop content onto the reader. Best of all, each time parents connect the Tag reader, they can view their children’s progress along LeapFrog’s proprietary Learning Path and access further content to match their children’s interests and needs.

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Jawbone Bluetooth Headset with NoiseAssassin Jawbone 2 Black Retail Packaged

Jawbone Bluetooth Headset with NoiseAssassin Jawbone 2 Black Retail Packaged

The Jawbone 2 is the next step in the integration of best-in-class noise elimination technology with personal design that is both humanistic and minimal. It has powerful noise suppression algorithms for use in the most extreme acoustic noise environments including battlefields and helicopters. The algorithms use Jawbone’s two microphones and the VAS (Voice Activity Sensor) to accurately model the noise environment. Jawbone detects when and how a person is speaking, models the noise, and aggressively eliminates it. Conventional “noise eliminating” headsets do not have the VAS and can only estimate when speech is occurring with software-based Voice Activation Detection (VAD) systems. For these systems to work, the speech must be significantly louder or spectrally different from the noise. These systems fail in loud environments or in the presence of other people’s speech. Furthermore, because they can’t accurately identify the speech signals, they distort the speech in the process of attempting to eliminate the noise. The result of this distortion is a significant degradation in intelligibility and quality in order to achieve a perceptual reduction in noise.

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Turn a Camera Lens into a Close-Up Lens with Binoculars

Do-it-yourselfer Chris Knight explains that the innards of cheap binoculars can double as a macro lens for digital SLR cameras and camcorders and can prove especially useful in situations when a macro lens is unavailable.

Review: Eee laptop PC shreds the rules

From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer a review of the Eee PC laptop from a reporter who is more intelligencer than most. "Asustek Computers Inc. went ahead and broke the rules with the Eee PC. And we should all be thankful. A scrappy, aggressively priced two-pound notebook with a surprisingly broad set of features, Eee is a no-brainer purchase..."