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:
