Robin Warren (沃倫) and Barry Marshal (馬歇爾)，幽門螺旋桿菌（Helicobacter pylori）.麥克伍德去世，享年 72 歲，設計的 LeapFrog Toys 曾教育了一代人Mike Wood, Whose LeapFrog Toys Taught a Generation, Dies at 72

麥克伍德去世，享年 72 歲，設計的 LeapFrog Toys 曾教育了一代人

他發明的 LeapPad 平板電腦可以幫助兒童閱讀，自 1999 年以來進入了數千萬家庭。

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麥克伍德 (Mike Wood) 身穿西裝外套，繫著藍綠色領帶，雙手拿著控制器站著，背景中矗立著一座卡通青蛙雕像。

2003 年，時任 Leapfrog Enterprises 執行長的 Mike Wood。圖片來源：J. Countess/WireImage 為 LeapFrog Enterprises 拍攝，圖片來自 Getty Images

特里普·加布里埃爾

筆者 Trip Gabriel

2025年4月19日

當邁克伍德 (Mike Wood) 還是一位年輕的父親時，他蹣跚學步的孩子在閱讀方面遇到了困難，這促使他開發出這一代人最喜愛的玩具之一。

伍德先生 3 歲的兒子馬特認識字母，但不會發出字母的發音。伍德先生是舊金山的律師，他有一種新手父母的焦慮，擔心如果他的孩子閱讀能力落後，他的生活就會永遠陷入困境。

因此，伍德先生利用業餘時間開發了一種電子玩具的原型，當孩子們擠壓塑膠字母時，這種玩具就會發出聲音。他的創意源自於打開時會播放旋律的賀卡。

伍德先生後來創立了 LeapFrog Enterprises，該公司於 1999 年推出了 LeapPad，這是一款兒童平板電腦，也是一種有聲書。

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LeapPad 大獲成功，成為 2000 年假期季節最暢銷的玩具，而 LeapFrog 也成為史上發展最快的玩具公司之一。

一台綠藍相間的長方形翻蓋電腦，內含一本指針和一本螺旋裝訂的故事書，每頁都畫著一隻青蛙，它打扮得像個孩子，直立著。

LeapPad 於 1999 年推出，一炮而紅，成為 2000 年假期季節最暢銷的玩具。圖片來源：Tony Cenicola/《紐約時報》

21 世紀初的孩子們都記得 LeapPad——就像 Game Boy 和 Tamagotchis 一樣——是他們的第一批電子設備之一。那一代的許多人都回憶起 LeapPad 幫助他們閱讀。

伍德先生於 4 月 10 日在蘇黎世去世，當時他所在的加州公司擁有約 1,000 名員工，他從公司退休後一直擔任該公司的執行長。享年72歲。

他的兄弟 Tim Wood 說，他患有阿茲海默症，並決定在病情惡化之前，在家人的陪伴下，在 Dignitas（一家提供醫生協助自殺的非營利組織）結束自己的生命。他住在加州米爾谷。

根據伍德先生以前的同事回憶，他是一位要求嚴格的企業家，他堅信科技可以幫助他所謂的「跨越式世代」獲得教育優勢。

伍德先生穿著紫色襯衫，繫著花領帶，懷裡抱著一個 LeapFrog 玩具。他身後的標誌牌上寫著「LeapFrog Learning Pond」。

2003 年，伍德先生與公司生產的一款益智玩具 Little Leap 在一起。圖片來源：Marcio Jose Sanchez/美聯社

LeapFrog 前娛樂執行董事 Chris D’Angelo 在玩具業新聞網站 The Bloom Report 上這樣評價伍德先生，稱他有一頭「出了名的蓬鬆頭髮」。 「壓力大的時候，他會不自覺地揉頭——頭髮越高，風險就越大。我們（悄悄地）把那段日子叫做‘高頭髮日’。這很有趣，也很有啟發性。他對一切都感同身受——我們的工作、我們的使命、我們的觀眾。”

1995 年，伍德先生的公司推出了第一款產品 Phonics Desk。這款產品是一塊矩形平板，當孩子按下字母和單字時，它就會發出聲音。這是伍德先生在諮詢了勞倫斯利弗莫爾國家實驗室的工程師以及史丹佛大學一位教育學教授之後，經過五年的摸索研發出來的。

1990 年代，閱讀教學法轉向語音教學法——幫助早期讀者將字母和聲音聯繫起來——引起了家長和老師對 LeapFrog 產品的興趣。

該公司吸引了兩位強大投資者的注意：20 世紀 80 年代的垃圾債券之王邁克爾·米爾肯 (Michael R. Milken) 和軟體公司甲骨文 (Oracle) 的創始人拉里·埃里森 (Larry Ellison)。他們創辦的教育公司 Knowledge Universe 於 1997 年收購了 LeapFrog 的多數股權，從而帶來了數百萬美元的資金用於開發新產品。

伍德先生繼續擔任總裁，他收購了一家開發出 LeapPad 原型機的公司，並敦促該公司創始人加速技術發展，以便 LeapPad 在玩具反斗城的零售價不超過 49 美元。

第一代 LeapPad 是一款綠藍相間的矩形翻蓋電腦。裡面可以插入互動式螺旋裝訂的故事書。孩子們用指針觸摸圖片中的一個單字或物品，以聽到它的拼寫或大聲發音。

根據《洛杉磯時報》報道，到 2001 年，該公司的閱讀設備和程序已進入 2,500 所學校，到 2002 年，LeapFrog 已進入 900 萬個家庭。

影像

伍德先生坐著，看著前景中部分可見的孩子。另外兩個孩子站在他身後看著

Màikè wǔdé qùshì, xiǎngnián 72 suì, shèjì de LeapFrog Toys céng jiàoyùle yīdài rén

tā fāmíng de LeapPad píngbǎn diànnǎo kěyǐ bāngzhù értóng yuèdú, zì 1999 nián yǐlái jìnrùle shù qiān wàn jiātíng.

Mike Wood, Whose LeapFrog Toys Taught a Generation, Dies at 72

His LeapPad tablets, which helped children read, found their way into tens of millions of homes beginning in 1999.





Mike Wood in 2003, when he was the chief executive of Leapfrog Enterprises.Credit...J. Countess/WireImage for LeapFrog Enterprises, via Getty Images



By Trip Gabriel
April 19, 2025


Mike Wood was a young father when his toddler’s struggles to read led him to develop one of a generation’s most fondly remembered toys.

Mr. Wood’s 3-year-old son, Mat, knew the alphabet but couldn’t pronounce the letter sounds. A lawyer in San Francisco, Mr. Wood had a new parent’s anxiety that if his child lagged as a reader, he would forever struggle in life.

So on his own time, Mr. Wood developed the prototype of an electronic toy that played sounds when children squeezed plastic letters. He based the idea on greeting cards that played a tune when opened.

Mr. Wood went on to found LeapFrog Enterprises, which in 1999 introduced the LeapPad, a child’s computer tablet that was a kind of talking book.







The LeapPad was a runaway hit, the best-selling toy of the 2000 holiday season, and LeapFrog became one of the fastest-growing toy companies in history.

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Introduced in 1999, the LeapPad was a runaway hit, the best-selling toy of the 2000 holiday season.Credit...Tony Cenicola/The New York Times


Children of the aughts remember LeapPads — like Game Boys and Tamagotchis — as among their first electronic devices. Many from that generation recall LeapPads helping them to read.

Mr. Wood, who retired from his California-based company when it had some 1,000 employees, died on April 10 in Zurich. He was 72.

His brother Tim Wood said he had Alzheimer’s and made the decision, before the disease progressed too far, to end his life at Dignitas, a nonprofit organization that offers physician-assisted suicide, where he was surrounded by family. He lived in Mill Valley, Calif.


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Mr. Wood in 2003 with Little Leap, one of his company’s educational toys.Credit...Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press


He had “famously fluffy hair,” Chris D’Angelo, LeapFrog’s former executive director of entertainment, wrote of Mr. Wood on The Bloom Report, a toy industry news site. “When stressed, he’d unconsciously rub his head — and the higher the hair, the higher the stakes. We (quietly) called them ‘high-hair days.’ It was funny, but also telling. He felt everything deeply — our work, our mission, our audience.”

Mr. Wood’s company released its first product, Phonics Desk, in 1995. A rectangular tablet that sounded out letters and words as children pressed them, it was the result of five years of tinkering as Mr. Wood consulted engineers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as well as an education professor at Stanford.

A shift in reading pedagogy in the 1990s toward phonics — helping early readers make a connection between letters and sounds — drove interest in LeapFrog’s products among parents and teachers.



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The company attracted the notice of two powerhouse investors: Michael R. Milken, the former 1980s junk bond king, and Larry Ellison, the founder of the software company Oracle. An education company they founded, Knowledge Universe, bought a majority stake in LeapFrog in 1997. That brought in millions of dollars to develop new products.

Mr. Wood, who remained president, acquired a company that developed a prototype of what became the LeapPad, and he pushed its founders to accelerate the technology so that LeapPads would retail for no more than $49 at Toys “R” Us.

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Mr. Wood with schoolchildren at a Toys “R” Us store in Manhattan. After retiring from LeapFrog in 2004, he was a volunteer reading teacher at a school near his home in Northern California.Credit...J. Countess/WireImage for LeapFrog Enterprises, via Getty Images

The company’s stock, offered to the public in July of that year, soared almost 99 percent. It was the best-performing I.P.O. of the year. By 2008, some 30 million LeapPads and related products were sold.

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 1982 年復活節期間，人們首次發現了導致大多數胃潰瘍並可能導致胃癌的細菌。

羅賓沃倫（左）和巴里馬歇爾（右）嘗試培育生物多次，但都失敗。只是在復活節假期期間，瓊脂平板被錯誤地留在培養箱中，才形成了大量的細菌菌落。顯然，一種新的細菌屬已被分離出來，最終被命名為幽門螺旋桿菌。

2005年，馬歇爾和沃倫因他們的發現獲得了諾貝爾生理學或醫學獎：https://bit.ly/3d9oth5

國家地理🌎

During Easter 1982 the bacteria that causes most stomach ulcers and can lead to gastric cancer was first discovered.

Robin Warren (left) and Barry Marshall (right) tried and failed to grow the organism several times. It was only when the agar plates were left in the incubator by mistake during the Easter holiday that numerous colonies of the bacterium developed. It became clear that a new bacterial genus had been isolated, which was eventually named Helicobacter pylori.

In 2005, Marshall and Warren were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery: https://bit.ly/3d9oth5

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