HEATHER IS WATCHING

Design and innovation consultancy IDEO has developed three “reading concepts” for the future of digital books: Nelson, Coupland and Alice — rather silly names that seem better assigned to jeans than concepts. What they’re really talking about are three different approaches to hypertext-ifying books. Some of this is already being done, but not, that I know of, directly within the reading experience, as is displayed in their short film. I’m sure that with time, there will be “an app for that” regarding each of these: Nelson: Contextualizes books within popular debate (footnotes and citations extended and made current) Coupland: Contextualizes books within your social network (think GoodReads or Readernaut) Alice: Turns books into games (think...