The Smart BookMark
Last week I was diagnosed with a serious digital condition. I found out I have what is known as “open tab syndrome” or OTS. With the recent spike in popularity of web browsers such as FireFox and GoogleChrome this condition is spreading rapidly. As college students, we form the most at risk demographic. Many of you, and many of your loved ones, may also be effected by this grave condition. The most common symptoms include a high rate of distraction, slow browser operation, absorption of trivial information and off-topic research. As of now, there is no cure. We can only hope to contain the symptoms.
It turns out I’m doubly at risk. Not only do I have open tab syndrome, I also recently contracted marginalias distractionmosis, a highly invasive infection that is spreading like wildfire throughout the Stevenson English department. I write and doodle all over books. I pause mid-page to look up terms or make notes relating to the text’s subject matter. I make promises to myself that I will remember to look up that obscure work, by some obscure author, mentioned obscurely in the assigned text…
But I never do.
I always forget to look up the cool information that I highlighted and made a careful note next to. Despite the highlighting and noting, as soon as the book is closed the reminders are meaningless. Book and computers inhabit two distinct planes of existence for most people. They exist in parallel universes. They’re so very close, but they never quite touch. Attempts at interdimensional travel to bridge this gap have been made. However, Kindles, eBooks and literature digitization are still in their early stages and have had limited success.
My pitch will hopefully provide a better solution. Using military grade nanotechnology, OCR software and the silhouette of your favorite animal, I’m here to propose the idea of a bookmark that would be able to scan text right off the page and send it to your computers browser, where it will open in a new tab. This way we will never ever forget to look up that cool topic the author referenced and we pinky-promised ourselves we would look up, as soon as we close the book.
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A Bluetooth signal will send the information from the bookmark to either your smartphone or computer. A separate folder will be created on the receiving device and filled with the information of interest. We can then fall down the rabbit hole of open tabs on Google, Yahoo or Bing in a state of Zen, knowing everything we wanted to look up will be right there at our fingertips.
While this technology won’t cure open tab syndrome, it will make it far more manageable. By creating sub-folders in the browser, the software will help keep personal reading and homework separate. It’ll also ease user’s consciences, allowing readers to know that all their annotating wasn’t done in vain. All their notes were just saved for later use, able to be looked up at their earliest convenience.
*Terms and conditions may apply. You and your family should still be tested for open tab syndrome. Privacy policy is subject to change.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Research/Evidence:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nothing I found in my research pointed to the current existence of a device like this. One with my desired combination of both portable and accurate OCR, Bluetooth pairing, super long battery life and also paper-thin technology.
Kindles and other e-readers allow you to look up highlighted text, but these functions interrupt the flow of your reading and are not as conducive to use in providing outside research. I’m hoping for a more fluid design that will also work with those of us who still prefer physical books.
Other audio search functions like Siri and Google voice searching require you to talk, and don’t allow you to fluidly create a list of search terms to save for later use.
With advances in OCR, nanotechnology and Bluetooth, I don’t think “smart bookmarks” will remain science fiction for long.
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(I will go back and provide proper citation for my visuals)
Animal Headed Bookmark URL:
www.ckcreatives.com.sg/images/images/felt_animal_bookmark_party_kit4.jpg
DSLR Lense URL:
Meditating Man URL:
What excites you about this project and why?
The idea of the fluid, text to research idea is really cool, I find that when I start researching I get easily distracted. This could be a way to help students who have a difficult time studying or maintaining focus.
What do you want to see more of and why?
I would want to see more of what this might look like, the idea of the bookmarks is cool but what features will it have. Will you have buttons on it to help control it? Is is going to work instantly based on the color of the highlighting? Also will you have to design an app or website to upload the data to?
What additional evidence does the audience need to be convinced that this research is complete?
I would want more evidence of the ability of it to open new tabs and the folder ability. You would have to convince us that the bookmark is capable of scanning and sending the information.
What excites you about this project and why?
I’d be very much interested in this as I always write down things I’m interested in at the moment, however when some time passes I completely forget about it.
What do you want to see more of and why?
Maybe it can involve a reminder to look up certain things you’ve saved in a folder.
What additional evidence does the audience need to be convinced that this
research is complete?
I think the research is solid.
I like that this can be very beneficial to a college student that has to read a lot of pages of a difficult text for classes. There is just so much to look up to get a better understanding of the text that this is great for organization.
What I want to see more of is will there be a limit of how many tabs can be open at a time before it goes in a folder?
There isn’t much else evidence that is needed.