Text 2.0 is a research project that uses eye tracking and gaze detection to see where you are looking on the page in real time. This information is used to determine if the reader is paying attention, and to what. It can also be used to determine if the reader is having trouble (reading the same passage multiple times).
(From )
Text 2.0 is our vision of how text and reading can evolve on digital devices, and it is by no means a specific prediction. We are not stating that these particular applications presented on this site will be widespread at any time in the future, we rather state that we see no substantial reason that should prevent them from becoming so, given certain conditions are met.
Most of the features Text 2.0 offers are bound to eye tracking. While current eye tracking devices are rather bulky and expensive, the development and miniaturization of similar technologies showed an amazing advancement during the past years. We think the same advancement can also occur in the development of eye tracking devices.
Augmented Text, as such, already exists today. The eyeBook has proven to work for a majority of its users; our newly created Text 2.0 browser plugin appears to work equally well. It is therefore not a question whether this technology will emerge, but rather to what extent we will see its future distribution and acceptance among readers.
As Augmented Reading, on the other hand, comprises a larger set of methods and ideas we are more readily tempted to sketch a possible scenario. Given that eye tracking devices become as common as web cameras are today, we see everyday benefits especially in the domain of knowledge workers. These areas will gain direct benefits of having meta information about the short and long term knowledge acquisition process. The benefits range from the direct provision of demanded information items to the automatic annotation of text for later retrieval up to collaborative approaches within workgroups.
SF readers may recall devices like the runcible, a book constructed of paper-thin displays called mediatrons, from Neal Stephenson's 1995 book The Diamond Age, which can also help you read it and use it.
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