Bridging Book

Bridging Book is a children’s mixed-media picture-book that blurs the line between printed and electronic books. It consists of a printed book and a digital device, placed side-by-side, with synchronized content. Thumbing through the book’s pages triggers the device to display the complementary digital content. The physical book requires no batteries or wires. It combines a physical book containing magnets with a touchscreen tablet that incorporates a built-in digital compass. The synchronization between the thumbing of the physical book and the digital content is achieved by placing magnets on the book pages that change the magnetic field strength detected by the digital compass sensor.

This work is funded by FEDER funds through the Operational Competitiveness Factors Program – COMPETE and by National Funds through the FCT – Portuguese Foundation for the Science and the Technology within the Project: PTDC/CCI-COM/119030/2010, EngageBook: touch, read and play.

Ana Lúcia Pinto, Ana Carina Figueiredo, Pedro Branco, Eduarda Coquet, Ido Iurgel, Nelson Zagalo

First Prototype

Final Prototype

Flexible version with smartphone