Given how few people have actually ever seen or used a Sony
Mylo, we suppose it's possible that Franklin's designers happened upon the look of the Speaking Spelling Bee completely by chance, but somehow we doubt it. Franklin was demoing the lil' guy at Toy Fair this past weekend, and it's actually an interesting little gadget: it hooks up to a TV so up to 6 kids can take each other on in spelling contests, it contains the Merriam-Webster Intermediate Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Rhyming Dictionary, it plays Sudoku and Hangman, and it's expandable via SD. That's actually slightly more useful than the original Mylo, if you think about it -- but if Franklin busts out the
Spider-man font for version two, we'll definitely know something's up.
[Via
Make]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
sancho @ Feb 21st 2008 3:31PM
do this do the nintendo ds?
phanbouy @ Feb 21st 2008 3:35PM
oh cmon, now you're just fuckin with us
Rob @ Feb 21st 2008 3:44PM
You're right. At first glance I thought it was the Mylo is ghostly white.
fred @ Feb 21st 2008 3:47PM
hey did anyone else buy a mylo for $129.99 the day after christmas? i did and the next day they released a new touch screen version which would have went perfect with my cybershot touch screen camera and ipod touch!!!
H4MM3R @ Feb 21st 2008 3:57PM
Has more uptime then a BlackBerry.
Jongscx @ Feb 21st 2008 3:59PM
Now, how to make it run linux....
ethana2 @ Feb 21st 2008 5:22PM
It probably does already... wasn't the kindle like that?
teej @ Feb 21st 2008 4:04PM
is THIS the final nail in HD-DVD's coffin?
Rob @ Feb 21st 2008 4:18PM
Yes it is.
john @ Feb 21st 2008 4:10PM
It's more useful than the Mylo just based on having an SD slot instead of a memory stick slot :-)
(evengrift: like my N800 has!)
dcny @ Feb 21st 2008 5:23PM
does sony even have to go to court for this one
all they have to do is show the judge this and then pull out a mylo
remedy @ Feb 21st 2008 10:12PM
Um. If it was that easy to sue other companies based off of looks, Apple would win every law suit against other companies based on aesthetics. But, they don't because they can't. It's more than likely here that Franklin has a licensed agreement on the hardware design from Sony Electronics. They are a global company and usually don't make mistakes that would land them in hot water unless they feel it's justified(by showing evidence of early patent prior to the competitors). It's not unusual for any company to borrow a design patent legally and run with it. HTC licenses out designs all the time. They don't sue because they don't have to.
ethana2 @ Feb 21st 2008 5:28PM
Ah, to celebrate our horrible language, no event or practice has ever been conceived more effective than the spelling bee.
Do you see the lojban and esperanto folks having spelling bees? Do you see spanish speakers having spelling bees? Do you see the japanese having spelling bees?
..which should tell you something. People can be idiots. English needs to go die.
I've been in many of them. They are in no wise productive. My english is as perfect as I care for it to be; I'm fluent. I'm more than ready to throw it all away when we get a lojban derivative with a wider phonetic base. (10 vowels, 40 regular consonants)
fred @ Feb 21st 2008 5:29PM
has the world turned sony? "The United States of Sony" has a nice ring to it doesnt it.