It's back-to-school season, and Crayola's Audio Ruler is just another example of how today's school supplies are more sophisticated — if not more useful — than the ones you had as a child. This "ruler" is really a marker: you draw a line (up to a foot long) in invisible ink (remember invisible ink?), and the ruler will tell you, out loud, how long the line is.

The big question here is, does the line have to be straight? If not, we could see this helping with a lot of circumference problem homework. But since it speaks lengths out loud, you won't have to worry about children using it to cheat on tests. The marker rulers are $8 each, and right now if you buy two, you get a silly-putty egg for free — a tempting proposition for all ages.

In fact, this is only the tip of the Crayola-chic trend that's sweeping the country right now: Start your schoolyear off right with Crayon Cologne and a Crayola MP3 player, too.
— S.E. Kramer

Crayola Store, via Gizmodo