The first virtual reality was books. The first tablets were clay, which were also the first books. Then we had papyrus scrolls, which gave way to the codex, which we commonly think as a book. This format had not changed for 1500 years, until now. Meet the Animated Book... also called an AR book or augmented book. Hovering an app over the illustrations brings them to life with animations, videos, and virtual reality experiences. There are more than a dozen startups and several established companies including Penguin, TinyMe, and Carleton Books in the space.
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The First Virtual Reality was BOOKS
Creativity
Factual records
Artistic Expression
Storytelling
KnowledgeImagination
LiteracyLearning
2
3. 3
A New Chapter in American Literacy 2009
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
1980 1985 1992 2002 2007 2008
Percentage of Adults Who Read Literature: 1982 - 2008
National Endowment of the Arts: Reading On The Rise (2009)
Only considers novels, short stories, poems, plays not required for work or school
3
4. 4
4
NEA: America in Literacy Recession 2016
Survey of Public Participation in the Arts and Annual Arts Basic Survey, National Endowment for the Arts
42
44
46
48
50
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Percentage of U.S. Adults Who Read Literature: 2002 - 2014
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Begin To Read's Literacy Statistics
‘’Liber’’ In Latin means both “Book” and “Free”
30%
70%
U.S. Inmates &
Basic Reading Level
“The link between
academic failure and
delinquency, violence,
and crime is welded to
reading failure”
~ Department of
Justice
5
At or Above Below
6. 6
15
0 10 20 30 40 50
Hispanic
African American
European America
Percent in U.S. Reading Below
Basic Level (2015)
8th Grade
4th Grade
6
Begin To Read’s Literacy Statistics
2/3 of Below Basic Readers in 4th Grade end up in Jail or on Welfare
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75% Of U.S. Parents Want Their Kids To Read More
7
BUT KIDS ARE READING LESS….
Scholastic Study: The State of Kids and Reading (United States)
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
2010 2012 2014
Frequent Readers
Moderate Readers
Infrequent Readers
8. 8
8
And More Kids are using Mobile Devices 5-7 Days a Week
75% Of U.S. Parents Want Their Kids To Read More
60% 42% 18% 33%
Scholastic Study: The State of Kids and Reading (United States)
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
2010 2012 2014
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Can We Make Learning Fun Again ?
What if the Next Evolution of
books made people Want to Read
and Learning Enjoyable…
Moved bearing
Stars lights their moving
life also. After is brought
grass.
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We’d Need Account for the New Reality
Thad Mcllroy,
The Future of Publishing
“People are becoming more attuned
to audio and video stimuli
than they are to the written word.
The written word is becoming quite flat
for many people...”
10
x
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Digital Has Advantages Over Print
Feature Print Media Digital Media
Nature of media
Nature of communication
Content
Interactivity
Information
Enjoyment
Opacity of content
11
Multi-media & Cross-media
Dynamic
Open & Contextual
Low degree
Active
High degree
Bi-directional & Circular
Mono-media
Unidirectional & Linear
Static
Poor or none
Closed & Uncontextual
Passive
High degree
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12
The Print Book is far from Dead
Print
Ebooks
Audio
People like print books
• Holding
• Highlighting/Notes
• Decoration
• Screen time alternative
• Easy on the eyes
• Physical bookstores
• Libraries
• Gifts
• Reselling
0 200 400 600 800
US Trade Book Units (M) By Format (2016)
Traditionally Published Amazon-Impint Published
Indie Self-Published
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The Next Evolution of Books Must Connect the
Physical and Digital World
Clay Tablets
3000 BC
Mesopotamia
Scroll
2400 BC
Egypt
Codex
100
Egypt
eBook
1971
U.S.
Paperback
1930
U.S.
13
Augmented Reality
2017
Everywhere
16. What is
POSSIBLE
???
“The book will become an
ever-evolving guided and
curated pathway through the
contextually relevant
universe of written word,
multimedia, interactions, and
experiences.
Linking the content
of books and other media
will create a Synaptic Web
that constitutes an evolving
collective intelligence.”
~ Dave Room, ZBook
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18. 18
18
Where Books Are Headed
• Mixed Reality
• Notes
• Read along
• Advertising
• Social
Early Adopters
• Kid’s Books
• Nonfiction
• Catalogs
• Corporations
AR Books
need a
Moniker
• Written Word
• Audio
• Bookshelf
Apps
• Virtual Reality
Imagine a little girl called Jessica,
She used to love reading but now she’s on her phone all time
Instagram, Youtube, and Snapchat. Her parents bring her a very special book
Pacha's Pajamas
When Pacha goes to sleep, the plant and animals on her PJs guide her on a dream adventure.
But what's really got Jessica excited was the augmented reality.
Watch happens when I hover our Zbook app over the book
This is what Pacha does when she first gets her PJs
This is what she happens when she goes to sleep
Hi i am Dave Room, CEO of Zbook and BALANCE Edutainment
We make reading fun with augmented reality.
In the making of Pacha’s Pajamas, I got a glimpse of the future of books
Caveat: I am not talking about all aspects of books – writing, marketing, distribution, etc…
Simply the book format – how does that sound?
The first virtual reality was book.
Research shows that reading about an experience is
So you like books and want make sure they are going to be around?
I am going to make a bold predication here today – later in this presentation in fact, that will give you the shivers.
But first lets talk a bit more about our relationship with books, and in this case, literature.
Literature does not include non-fiction…
In 2009, the National Endowment of the Arts was excited.
After over 2 decades of decline, the percent of adults reading literature had been on the upswing for 8 years.
The proclaimed a new chapter in American Literacy.
But as with all good things, this too came to an end.
Last year, the same NEA reported that since 2008,
Adults who read literature rates were on a steep downtrend and
at their lowest level in decades.
Our forefathers knew the importance of the book.
I find it fascinating that the word for book in Latin – Liber – also means free.
A book is linked to freedom to liberty. Literacy to Liberty.
Department of Justice points out that “The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure.”
According to literacy non profit Begin to Read, 70% of inmates read can’t read.
No wonder parents want their kids to read.
Furthermore, Begin to Read says that most below basic readers in 4th grade will end up in jail or on welfare.
As you can see for all ethnic groups, only a small percentage of kids below basic in 4th grade are not below basic by 8th grade.
Hence, it is imperative that we get kids interested and excited in reading before 4th grade. If we do not, their prospects for devastating failure are dangerously high.
It’s no surprise that most parents want their kids to read to more. As many as 75% according to a recent Scholastic report.
Unfortunately frequent readers are going down
And infrequent readers ate going up
Does anyone have an idea of what may be causing kids to read less?
Put your hands up if you think mobile devices…
In the same report, Scholastic notes that more kids are using mobile device almost if not every day.
So we have a problem… Reading is important for quality of life and staying out of jail. You need to start as a kid. Kids are reading less…
What to do?
Who here thinks the answer could have something to do with make it fun?
What if the next evolution of books made kids want to read and made learning enjoyable?
Let me give a hint ---
We have to!
But there’s in the way… something we need to account for… along with technology, our sensitivity to external stimuli is evolving as mentioned by Thad Mcllroy.
And multi-media is just one of the areas where Digital appears to be superior
With digital you get bi-directional communication – back and forth exchange of information – can’t input anything in a book
Dynamic content – it takes a new edition to get changes in a book
High levels of interactivity – pretty much the interactivity of a book is opening it, looking at it, turning a page, writing in it, closing it
Contextual relevancy – your book content won’t change based on your location
Active enjoyment – as we mentioned above, your pretty much limited to looking at pages and making notes
Low opacity of content – You can’t really layer the info in books. You can’t see through a book.
It should also be noted that some of these supposed less advantaged traits such as being static can be good – static content is great for preserving history (though where I think we need to be headed is evolving content).
Never the Less, the print book is far from dead.
The units of print books and the corresponding revenues are much higher than digital books.
Who here likes the feeling of books in your hand?
Clap if you make notes or highlight in books?Anyone have a bookcase? What about a coffee table book?
Hands up if you think books are a good alternative to screens?
Anyone here who have trouble reading on screens?
Anyone here like bookstores?
What about libraries?
Has anyone here given a book as a gift?
Has anyone here ever resold a book?
Here is my bold prediction: for marker-based augmented, the killer app is a book!
The next evolution of the book will connected the physical and the digital
Let’s a take a look at history!
The first virtual reality was books – science shows that reading a book is like being there – literally in your mind, the same neurons fire.
The first books were tablets – clay, which transitioned to papyrus scrolls and then about 2,000 years ago, to the codex, which we commonly refer to as a hardcover book.
The paperback was introduced in 1930, the same time at which the ebook was conceived.
But it took 4 decades for technology to catch up and the first ebook was introduced in 2071. The first Kindle was shipped in 2007.
And in 2017, the augmented reality book became real.
What’s interesting is that for recorded history, the evolution of books was always about reducing costs until now
At evolutionary step , we saw a clear increase in value for the first several steps but after the Codex we are basically seeing the same content in different formats, until now
Augmented reality will make costs go up and but potential value will go up even quicker
Lets talk about what happens when you combine augmented reality and books
A lot of engaging content – there are so many books
A platform upon which to add new or additional content – we keep books around
Contextual relevance – you see more information connected to what exactly your attention is on
Books have a lot of unique characteristics – we can create powerful experiences by leveraging these
Combine local device-based pattern recognition for depth and cloud-based recognition for breadth
Why do we care? What do the studies show?
Can increase profitability through greater sales and loyalty, new revenues streams, and more effective marketing
Can increase learning – helps learn tasks, improvements in reading comprehension and expressive vocabulary
Can be much richer, entertaining and interactive experience – multi-media, immersive, makes people want to read
And there will be new possibilities…
The book will become an ever evolving guided and curated pathway through the contextually relevant universe of written word, multimedia, interactions, and experiences.Imagine a
Imagine if all the information in books was linked together
Many types of books will be augmented
Here’s where we are at:
We need a nickname – eBook, iBooks,,,,Early adopters will be children’s books, non-fiction, catalogs and corporations
We are going to see written word and audio augmentation, bookshelf apps that have multiple books, and virtual reality experiences in books and bookstores.
Later we will see Mixed reality, notes/highlighting, readalongs, ads, and something I am interested in, social books.
Here are the most active players
More children than adult
More in fiction than non-fiction
Thank you very much
In conclusion, I would like to say that I am very bullish on the future of books
And that the animated book is the next big thing for marker-based augmented reality
I am excited to have conversations with authors and publishers that may be interested in animating their book
As well as potential distribution channels for the Pacha’s Pajamas animated book including hospitals, out of the home edutainment, and literacy programs
Corporations who would like to be associated with the next evolution of books
You can find me at the startup area in the exhibit hall or email me dave@pachasapajamas.com.