Perhaps About the Coolest Book EVER~! =D

[Renegade]

This is just wicked cool:

http://vimeo.com/47656204?action=share

You'll kind of wonder what it is for a bit, but at the end, the cool-factor will leave you slack-jawed.

[TaoPhoenix]

I think I'm just slack-jawed ... I don't even fully understand what just happened - it looked like some sort of putting a touch interface onto the book that then affected the scanned copy.

[40hz]

I didn't completely get what the goal was until the last half minute or so. But what a concept!

It has arguably identified the missing link between print and electronic books. They should have called that video When e-Text Worlds Collide. Imagine... a print book that (when plugged in) can also present active text and media elements using the printed page as the control interface. Talk about the best of both worlds. That is just too cool! (It will only be a matter of time before this gets up on TED.)

I want it! Have them start with the Encyclopedia Britannica. Maybe that's what it will take to finally get that monster back in print.

(I wonder how long it will be before Apple, or some other troll, claims they already invented it and sue them? )

[mouser]

It was very pretty as an artistic handmade creation, and I hate to be a downer, but haven't they basically been doing this kind of thing cheaply with some kids books for years?

See for example, the Story Reader technology:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LwvNJ54b08

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY-TJUrI4jA

See also:

• http://childrens-books.lovetoknow.com/Electronic_Books_for_Children
• http://www.amazon.com/Story-Reader-Books/lm/R2UA7Z1ATN38GI
• http://shop.leapfrog.com/leapfrog/jump/Tag/category/Tag

[40hz]

^Not really. Maybe the most basic of core concepts is shared there. But the level of this implementation goes far beyond the old "speak & play" kid books. With those, the "multimedia" elements were merely bolted on. Probably more as a marketing gimmick than anything else considering all the worthless "educational software" that was being produced when those 'electronic' books came out.

This is more like wedding the concept of a tablet PC to a 'paper' book. Almost the antitheses of the whole ebook reader concept which attempts to eliminate the need for paper. This goes in the opposite direction and enhances the more traditional book format and materials to integrate and connect to the electronic environment.

Interestingly, doing it this way provides additional capabilities for both environments (i.e. electronic and print) without either being completely dependent on the other in order to be useful. That's a whole new way of looking at it. I'd characterize that more as a synergy than anything else.

[ewemoa]

Imagine... a print book that (when plugged in) can also present active text and media elements using the printed page as the control interface.

Similar to some of the technology ideas in The Diamond Age?

[40hz]

^Thank you! I was trying to remember the name of that book!

[cranioscopical]

Okay, I know I'm as thick as two short planks but what's the advantage over having an electronic version of the book on, say, a tablet? 

[40hz]

^You have a book that doesn't require a power source or weblink to use. But if you do have one, it can provide additional content, moving diagrams, video/audio clips, interactivity, etc. It keeps the advantages of a standard book in that it can be read as is, but it also gains the benefits of an ebook when it's in places with the appropriate connections and resources.

[cranioscopical]

Thanks 40hz, I thought I must have been missing somet hing but apparently not 

[Renegade]

Don't forget that computers are SSSSSSSSSSSSLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW..............................

Turning pages in an ebook is mind-bogglingly frustrating. Anything over 0.1 seconds to turn a page is just tooooooooooo slow.

Paper is FAST. You can flip from anywhere to anywhere far faster than you can with any electronic book.

Before I bought my tablet, I looked at the Kindle... I wanted to stab myself in the face because it would have been less painful.

PDF? Oh god! Save us! PDF is like the Anti-Christ of digital print in portable computing. It's not meant for portable computing - it's meant for print. And it shows.

MOBI and ePUB are far, far, far superior to PDF for mobile computing. They work. But they are still slow in comparison to paper.

The paper book there - you can flip through the pages and there you have it, then you can glance up at the slow computer for anything interactive.

It really is sort of a strange marriage of digital and physical, but it's just so darn cool~! You get the benefits of both media at the same time. Have you cake AND eat it~! Nom nom nom~!

[40hz]

Eventually they'll incorporate all that tech into the pages themselves. But for the near and mid-term, it'll do.

Maybe to Chris's point this will end up being nothing more than an alternative version of an ebook in that there will be two flavors available:

• the "library" tablet-style 'universal reader' model (similar to today's Nook or Kindle) where one device stores many book titles; and 
   
• the true electronic book, which is basically a single title that looks and behaves exactly like a traditional book except it has electronic enhancements that allow it to do things not possible with simple ink on simple paper.

[Paul Keith]

I really hope someone pairs it up with this: http://www.diginfo.tv/v/12-0160-r-en.php

40hz is rightful to be excited here. The potential is just unlimited especially for education.

We've all heard of such psychological flaws such as:

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-fulfilling_prophecy

There is extensive evidence of "Interpersonal Expectation Effects" where the seemingly private expectations of individuals can predict the outcome of the world around them. The mechanisms by which this occurs are also reasonably well understood: it is simply that our own expectations change our behaviour in ways we may not notice and correct. In the case "Interpersonal Expectation Effects", others pick up on non-verbal behaviour which affects their attitudes. A famous example includes a study where teachers were told arbitrarily that random students were "going to blossom". Oddly, those random students actually ended the year with significantly greater improvements.[7]

Other specific examples discussed in psychology include:

'Clever Hans' effect
Observer-expectancy effect
Hawthorne effect
Placebo effect
Pygmalion effect
Stereotype threat

Imagine instead of training teachers in backwards countries such as ours, both students and teachers can experience what an exceptional teacher teaching to their students would feel like.

Each turn of the page would be linked to a camera simultaneously sliding with the pace of the student flipping the textbook and the book is not even there. Just a virtual simulation playing at the same pace as the virtual teacher flipping the actual book is doing but controlled by the user student through their own flipping of the virtual book.

[cranioscopical]

it's just so darn cool

No question about that, it's fascinating!

(If you've not tried using a phone for forum entries I'd strongly recommend against it  )

[Renegade]

it's just so darn cool

No question about that, it's fascinating!

(If you've not tried using a phone for forum entries I'd strongly recommend against it  )

+1

When we were travelling a couple years ago, I'd go outside the hotel for a cigarette with my phone and read a few DC posts. Replying? Maybe one. And probably only a smilie.

Last time, earlier this year, I had my tablet, and still didn't reply much. I really do like full-sized, physical keyboards. Even the tiny keyboard for my Mac is annoying. It's probably great for children though.

[TaoPhoenix]

(If you've not tried using a phone for forum entries I'd strongly recommend against it  )

However, at 4AM on a road trip away from your computer, when DC withdrawal hits, you have no choice! 

[cranioscopical]

However, at 4AM on a road trip away from your computer, when DC withdrawal hits, you have no choice!

I take your point, but trying to post a message from my phone feels a little like trying to spray paint a room through its keyhole. 

[f0dder]

Hm, looks pretty interesting - but more of an artsy thing than something really useful - at least without a lot of further refinement. One obvious thing is that the cable should be replaced with bluetooth or similar... but it also seemed to me that there was a lot of pretty book-specific engineering? i.e., for a different layout or different content, you'd need both specific programming and engineering?

I guess I don't see a lot of situations where this would be genuine useful, though. Something about the different ways I use print and electronic media - I'd find it annoying that the electronic version flips when I flip the book... ho humm

[Renegade]

However, at 4AM on a road trip away from your computer, when DC withdrawal hits, you have no choice!

I take your point, but trying to post a message from my phone feels a little like trying to spray paint a room through its keyhole. 

HAHAHAHA~!;D

I LOVE the analogy~!

Hm, looks pretty interesting - but more of an artsy thing than something really useful - at least without a lot of further refinement. One obvious thing is that the cable should be replaced with bluetooth or similar... but it also seemed to me that there was a lot of pretty book-specific engineering? i.e., for a different layout or different content, you'd need both specific programming and engineering?

I guess I don't see a lot of situations where this would be genuine useful, though. Something about the different ways I use print and electronic media - I'd find it annoying that the electronic version flips when I flip the book... ho humm

Well, imagine it's put into a full publishing work flow, where the physical and digital books are produced together...

Now, when you buy your physical book, the digital one is already in it. You just plug your physical book into your computer, and you have access to this wonderful new world of interactivity, etc. etc.

This is to the physical/digital world what HTML was to flat text.

Pretty damn revolutionary.  

[40hz]

I guess I don't see a lot of situations where this would be genuine useful, though.

It could for technical instruction.

Some stuff is easier to teach with moving pictures or live examples. The ability to animate something (like showing how the OSI model actually encapsulates data and moves it, or how bytes get moved around in the registers and accumulators of a CPU in response to a piece of machine code, or touch a music score and hear it played, or tap a movie still and and actually see the scene get played, etc.) goes a long way towards showing how a dynamic system works. Although I suppose you could do the same thing by just providing a link to a website (like many instructional books now do) - except then it would no longer be data contained within the book itself.

But yeah, it still has a long way to go. And this project is just an early 'proof of concept' piece to whet our appetites and get people thinking about how something like this could be effectively used.

(Besides, doesn't the Necronomicon already work like that? You trace the diagrams with your index finger and read certain words in the text and...things...happen.)

[Renegade]

But yeah, it still has a long way to go. And this project is just an early 'proof of concept' piece to whet our appetites and get people thinking about how something like this could be effectively used.

+1

This has massive potential! It's like a new HTML.

Way back, I thought the web was crap. Because it was. I should have paid more attention to the potential.

(Besides, doesn't the Necronomicon already work like that? You trace the diagrams with your index finger and read certain words in the text and...things...happen.)

I would love to work on that technology, but killing babies isn't one of my strong points.

[Stoic Joker]

(Besides, doesn't the Necronomicon already work like that? You trace the diagrams with your index finger and read certain words in the text and...things...happen.)

Damn it! That's what I'm doing wrong ... I keep forgetting to trace the diagram before reciting the incantation.

Thanks!

[TaoPhoenix]

But yeah, it still has a long way to go. And this project is just an early 'proof of concept' piece to whet our appetites and get people thinking about how something like this could be effectively used.

+1

This has massive potential! It's like a new HTML.

Way back, I thought the web was crap. Because it was. I should have paid more attention to the potential.

(Besides, doesn't the Necronomicon already work like that? You trace the diagrams with your index finger and read certain words in the text and...things...happen.)

I would love to work on that technology, but killing babies isn't one of my strong points.

The Necronomicon is Technology? Oh, so THAT explains Apple! 

[cranioscopical]

I keep forgetting to trace the diagram before reciting the incantation.

So there's no trace of it?

[Edvard]

Of course not, because you see, he's line.