Books and Technology

Drive this Book

[youtube]http://youtu.be/2vwLB1a8QTA[/youtube] In 2011 graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister teamed up with the folks at BMW to produce CULTURE, a book showcasing BMW’s 40 years of cultural partnerships. The book was published in an edition of 1488 signed copies and none were for sale. Oh, and the book has one other special feature - you can drive it!  For it comes equipped with an integrated, remote-controlled car!! Also, if you arranged all the copies in numerical order it "would make a square measuring 7 x 7 metres depicting a graphically abstracted image of the legendary BMW "four cylinder" building - the company headquarters in Munich built...

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Book Wash

Note: There is no sound on this videos - please choose your own background music and enjoy! If you do come up with the perfect soundtrack please let us know in the comments.Información Científica Internaciona (ICI) is first Mexican company formed by professional librarians and archivists to serve and cater to the libraries of Mexico and beyond..These videos, from late 2008, showcase a couple of contraptions used in the cleaning and maintenance of books. The English translates to Automatic Cleaning System and it looks like they took the technology of the car wash and applied it to books. Oh, and in the...

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The Electrolibrary

Talk about going from the page to the screen.Now with the Electrolibrary your printed book IS the computer interface! Inspired by noted Russian artist El Lissitzky  the Electrolibrary is the brainchild of Waldek Węgrzy, a student at Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, Poland.Here is how it works:The book can be browsed as any other regular book but when connected to the computer via USB, by turning pages, you can navigate through the website, getting additional information, quotations, movies and animations appropriate to the currently open page.The content of the book is Waldek’s diploma thesis discussing phenomenon of a book as...

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Spend Midsummer Online with The Royal Shakespeare Company

Oberon wakes Titania as Bottom sleeps in her bower and Lysander, Demetrius, Helena and Hermia sleep on their trapezes in Peter Brook’s 1970 Royal Shakespeare Co. production of Midsummer Night's Dream at Stratford-on-Avon. Photo: Joe CocksThis summer marks the 40th production of Midsummer Night's Dream by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC).To celebrate RSC has announced  "a ground breaking digital theatre project –Midsummer Night’s Dreaming – in partnership with Google Creative Lab." Here is what's going on:Across Midsummer weekend (21 – 23 June) the play will be performed by an acting company in real time... culminating in a wedding, which you can attend.Meanwhile,...

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