Ink & Switch's PlayBook turns paper notebooks into programmable devices
PlayBook: A Programmable Paper Notebook [video]
Ink & Switch has unveiled PlayBook, a programmable paper notebook that blends physical pages with digital interactivity. A Hacker News commenter calls it one of the coolest demos from the lab in a while, though notes the published live demo omits several demos shown in the talk and leaves unclear how users can build their own, making deeper evaluation difficult.
One of the coolest demos I've seen out of Ink N' Switch in while (tbh, it's seemed like they were really cooking for the year or so).
- tobr
It’s a fascinating design approach. Taking a few basic primitives (paper, ink) and seeing how much mileage you can get out of them without interfering with their fundamental behaviors, but also without adding new primitives. Most interaction design would add a new primitive for every high-level user need instead. Which to be fair probably makes more sense for practical product design needs. But the ability to compose/decompose sophisticated behavior from/into smaller parts I think is a hallmark of software that really works as a predictable tool with a high ceiling for what kinds of problems you can tackle. I guess well-designed programming languages are a perfect example of that.
- mold_aid
Enjoyed the presentation, at least, but maybe I'm left feeling a little naive about the use of "paper" in the pitch. Not so much a metaphor as not actually a paper notebook
- coysh
Cool demo - but like others have said I'm not convinced about the use of "paper"