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A GUI For Books
NASA's Goddard Flight Center has just issued a contract to use Touch User Interface technology from a company called Somatic Digital. Their "TouchBooks" let printed material connect to digital devices via sensors in the covers. (C'mon, don't tell me you've never pressed on a URL on a printed page and expected something to happen.) This page on the vendor's site has videos of a 7-year-old using a TouchBook. Works with XP and OS X.
(C'mon, don't tell me you've never pressed on a URL on a printed page and expected something to happen.)
Ok, I won't tell you that I've never done it.
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
Back slowly away from the psychoactive drugs, these nice men want to have a little talk with you.
... and then they built the supercollider.
This page on the vendor's site has videos of a 7-year-old using a TouchBook.
OK, but little kids pick up on things pretty well. Like grandma asking little Timmy to open her child-proof medecine bottle for her.
Show me a video of my grandma using this thing and I'll be impressed.
tried clicking a link in a book...
one time in college after several days of no sleep and too much coding, I tried to click on a post-it note that was stuck to the top corner of my monitor.
And another time at work -- again after too little sleep -- I ctrl-c'd something on one computer, then walked into another room and tried to paste it onto that computer. Twice. Then I actually stopped to think about what I was doing.
C'mon, don't tell me you've never pressed on a URL on a printed page and expected something to happen.
No, but I do lick my fingertips before I click the "Next" button.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Recently, I did glance up at the top-right corner of a book to see what time it was. And was disappointed to see a page number instead.
No, but I have looked for an "UNDO" button when filling out paper forms...
...does anyone else has the taskbar at the bottom of their dreams from time to time?
Does this sig remind you of Agatha Christie?
(C'mon, don't tell me you've never pressed on a URL on a printed page and expected something to happen.)
Back in high school my chemistry teacher once started wiping the white board before everyone had finished taking notes. A girl in class said "No, wait", the teacher stopped halfway through and said "Oh, sorry". Then he drew an undo button (like the one in, for example, MS Word) on the board and pushed it with his hand and said "Well it didn't work, maybe you could just copy someone elses notes".
The technology will be there soon. For instance, 600dpi ePaper with optional (but not necessary) backlighting. A display that looks as good as the output of a decent laser printer will be around in the next decade or so. The capacity to store any amount of reading material you would ever want on a device the size of a pocket paperback is there now.
The reason it will never take off is because for the same price as a paperback + $1.99, you will get a single eBook that's encrusted with DRM, can't be transferred to a different device and, if the capriciousness of content providers continues on the path it is now, will expire (and self-delete) in a month.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.