Harry Potter was a little taken aback when he first read The Daily Prophet, but the idea of moving images and changing texts right in front of our eyes isn’t as far-fetched as it might seem. Interactive newsprint, a collaborative research project undertaken by three universities, has produced a special kind of paper which can connect to the internet. Like clicking on a link on a tablet, this kind of paper has touch functionality; touching a certain picture or section will change the information on the page and enhance your experience. Don’t think that the paper is just a thin tablet which still uses a screen though – this is paper which feels and looks exactly like the traditional newsprint material.
The benefits
The research undertaken by Dundee, Surrey and the University of Central Lancashire is intended to combine the worlds of print press with digital media forging a new companionship between the two. The digitalisation of news is having a huge impact on current newspapers. At the end of 2011 The Guardian had to raise the price of the newspaper as a direct result of the digital revolution, but deleting the physical newspaper from our everyday experience isn’t necessarily desirable. Research shows that we read very different from the screen compared with reading print and we remember things read from the internet very differently to reading them in print. There’s also something to be said for the tactile experience of physical reading. We’re designed to experience physically – the way a newspaper feels to touch or smells shapes our experience and memory of the event.
Interactive paper then would provide us with all the benefits of digital media – quick access to further information, timely updates of new stories, videos and changing pictures, whilst still giving us the physical experience of reading from paper.
Will it actually find a place?
Although interactive paper sounds like a cool gimmick will it actually have useful applications when smart phones and tablets offer us the same information? Alex Masters at The Independent gives some good examples as to when interactive print could really come into its own. Being able to tap on a restaurant menu to find out more information about ingredients or see a picture, or tapping on a street map on holiday to hear how a certain place is pronounced are just two real world applications of this kind of technology. As Masters comments, “In some situations paper is, and always will be, the most appropriate medium.”
When can we try it?
The team presented a prototype of the paper at the London Design Festival 2012. Although the invention has a long way to go before it can be produced on a mass scale it’s believed that eventually we’ll be able to print LCD moving images on paper and other products cheaply.
