Eric Limer - 

There’s a lot of talk that technology is going to kill the book, eBooks specifically. It’s true that physical books are still pretty low-tech, but that doesn’t mean they have to stay that way. Maybe there could be a future where books are actually computer peripherals. If so, the prototype Elektrobiblioteka is a teaser.

Polish for Electrolibrary, Elektrobiblioteka is a half-art installation, half-peripheral designed by Waldek Wegrzyn that lets a user actually control a computer with a book. Granted, it’s no ordinary book; it’s loaded with all kinds of specialized circuitry. Likewise, you don’t use it to navigate your desktop; you use it to interact with a very specific program. Of course, this very specifically designed application is really the only way this coupling makes sense, but the result has potential.

The electronic version of Elektrobiblioteka is available to anyone online, but there are only a couple of the physical book prototypes, so you only get to see one half of the pair in person. Still, it’s easy to imagine how a digital component could make physical magazines, books, and newspapers more relevant, or at least less irrelevant. Who’s to say where this technology is going, if anywhere, but it’s a neat concept, kind of like a digital pop-up book. Maybe, just maybe, it could keep print alive someday. [Electrobiblioteka via PhysOrg]