Manolis Kelaidis’ blueBook: Quo vadis, book?
Technology somehow finds its way into tradition. Or is it the other way round? Traditional book readers have been lamenting about the loss of conventional book reading. “It is a pleasure to hold a book in one’s hands”, they say. Yet, increasingly, people favor electronic media of any type over dead trees. That´s especially true for young people. Is the demise of the book inevitable? Well, Manolis Kelaidis of the Royal College of Arts, a student of Industrial Design Engineering, has tried not to replace paper books with an ebook but to integrate the printed with the digital media. He has invented a “blueBook” in the process (shown this week down in the Valley in San Jose). This book is a digital version of the ordinary book with some add-in features. Its pages are printed with conductive ink. This ink forms hyperlinks on the page which are sensitized by the touch of a finger.
There are hidden processors under the book cover that connect the book to a computer through Bluetooth. The book responds in different manners based on its contents. There may be hyperlinks to images or dictionaries or music on the Internet - anything the author wants. Imagine what you could do with footnotes.
The blueBook would be a useful tool for the visually handicapped if there is an audio receptor embedded in the book. Children might particularly enjoy it if it makes the sound of a lion when they touch a picture of the lion. Can holograms be a part of the book? We are yet to see where this book will go but the possibilities seem endless. (UsVi)