This is a few days old by now, but Business Week is reporting about Leapfrog's new 'Fly,' a computer embedded inside a largish pen. The pen interacts with kids through voice commands and writing recognition.

Kids can use it as a calculator, keep a calendar, create and record music, and play complex logic and geography games — all features I tried and found fun and educational.

What's so cool about this, I think, is that it moves the interface away from the keyboard/mouse/monitor that kids are tied to with computers. Embedded computing is also another way for kids to be more mobile – so they can take more traditional 'learning activities' outside of the predictable environments and into their own, more informal spaces.

The downside is that the pen requires special paper (sold separately, of course) in order for its handwriting recognition to work.