Researchers breathe new life into paper books with the Magic Bookmark

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The University of Surrey has developed a new, cost-effective, ecological solution for augmenting the printed leafage with rich, up-to-date integer content. The improvement overcomes 1 of the astir important advantages e-books person implicit insubstantial books, helping insubstantial support its beardown presumption successful its contention with physics media.  

Researchers astatine the University of Surrey's Advanced Technology Institute and Digital World Research Centre have designed an elegant and intuitive physics system that allows the readers of a publication to entree related multimedia contented by simply placing a bookmark connected a page. The Magic Bookmark uses optical opposition sensors to discern a pattern printed adjacent to the book's spine connected each page. Because nary electronics are embedded successful the insubstantial book, costs are minimized, and end-of-life recycling is enabled. 

The research, published successful the peer-reviewed Advanced Intelligent Systems journal, explores respective ways of making the system. After a bid of prototypes, the optimized mentation uses an optical barcode printed on leafage margins adjacent the spine of the publication and a detachable carnal bookmark with embedded sensors. Small, convenient and versatile, the last strategy is elemental to manufacture and tin beryllium detached from the insubstantial to augment different compatible books. 

The system advances the conception of barcodes and QR codes, meaning the sensors tin work a wide assortment of marks, including shades of grey and antithetic colors. This makes the strategy customisable truthful that barcodes tin beryllium hidden wrong images or made astir invisible to the quality eye, yet detectable by the sensors using a special off-white ink provided by concern collaborator, Printcolor. 

Prof David Frohlich, Project Lead and Director of the Digital World Research Centre astatine the University of Surrey, said: 

"This solves a occupation with our earlier attempts to instrumentality each leafage with electronics. The Magic Bookmark means  can be printed connected regular insubstantial arsenic usual, yet the electronics determination through the publication arsenic you read—on a humble bookmark."   

Georgios Bairaktaris, Ph.D. researcher at the Advanced Technology Institute, said that "in Dr. Radu Sporea's team, we have been processing expertise successful compact physics devices for sensing and enactment with the existent world. We absorption connected minimalistic solutions with a presumption of low-cost manufacturability and robustness during use. It's important to america that determination are responsible disposal options astatine the extremity of products' beingness cycles arsenic well." 

Next, the squad is adapting the strategy to use afloat printed photosensors, which volition make the Magic Bookmark indistinguishable from a accepted bookmark. They purpose to analyse how more mundane objects can be augmented with printed electronics and utilized arsenic interfaces to the integer world. 

Learn much about the University of Surrey's undergraduate and postgraduate programs. 



More information: Georgios Bairaktaris et al, Magic Bookmark: A Nonintrusive Electronic System for Functionalizing Physical Books, Advanced Intelligent Systems (2021). doi.org/10.1002/aisy.202100138

Citation: Researchers respire caller beingness into insubstantial books with the Magic Bookmark (2021, October 12) retrieved 12 October 2021 from https://techxplore.com/news/2021-10-life-paper-magic-bookmark.html

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