Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
2.2.2 Augmented Books
Augmented books demonstrate the second main function of augmented paper: en-
riching printed contents by embedded hyperlinks which point to additional digital
resources. Thereby classical reading of a physical topic can seamlessly evolve into
browsing a physical-digital hypertext. Augmented books are conceptually similar to
paper tokens in that they link from paper to digital resources. However in contrast to
a paper token, which merely acts as a physical representation of a digital resource,
an augmented books has its own value, independently from the digital resources.
Here, hyperlinks do not reference between two instantiations of the
same
resource,
but between
different
resources.
We can classify these systems following the technology which is used to select
hyperlinks on paper (and the resulting interactions), the type of the digitally linked
media, and the device on which this digital media is made available. The underlying
interaction metaphor is similar in all thee systems: selecting a link hot-spot with
a deictic gesture for accessing the associated digital resource. Depending on the
technology, the deictic gesture is realized by tapping with a stylus or the finger,
clicking with the mouse, or scanning a marker with a camera or a barcode reader.
ActiveBook
[137] consists of a paper topic and a specific point-and-click selec-
tion device that contains a barcode reader and a mouse. Pages of the topic contain
active areas that serve as link hot-spots to Web resources. These areas can be of var-
ious shapes and sizes, allowing for very flexible link anchors. A hot-spot is selected
by moving the selection device over it. The system does not automatically recog-
nize which page of the topic is open. For this purpose, each page contains a linear
barcode that the user has to scan before selecting a link hot-spot.
The
Listen Reader
[6] is an augmented physical topic with embedded hyperlinks
to audio files. It conceptually improves over ActiveBook in two aspects. First, it
does not require any interaction device but allows the user to select links by simply
tapping on a link hot-spot. Second, the current page of the topic is automatically
detected using RFID technology. A passive RFID tag is embedded in each page of
the topic. An RFID reader in the back cover of the topic detects which pages form
the right hand side of the opened topic and infers the current page. For detecting
touch and hover interactions, the Listen Reader relies on inductive sensing.
Books with Voices
[62] is an augmented paper topic that provides links to video
resources. Each link is represented by a linear barcode that is printed on the page
margin besides an interlinked paragraph of text. When the user wants to follow
this hyperlink, she scans the barcode with a PDA device that features a barcode
reader (Fig. 2.8). The PDA identifies the target resource and plays back the video.
While the interaction is less direct than with ListenReader and the large number of
barcodes potentially interferes with the visual design, Books with Voices has the
advantage to be easily deployed in real settings using standard hardware. Moreover,
digital contents can be displayed in-situ using on the PDA. Today, a similar concept
is widely deployed: QR codes [46] are printed on paper documents that encode the
URL of a digital resource. The user can easily display the resource on a camera
phone by reading the barcode with the camera.
