Interactive Newsprint

Interactive Newsprint Prototype

The thought of an interactive printed publication is a bit of alien concept to say the least, so we're currently working on our digital prototype which will help explain the actual product better than any words ever will.
Bringing paper to life
Interactive Newsprint will work together with people in communities from Preston to experiment with a brand new technology called interactive paper. Researchers from Dundee, Surrey and UCLan want to find out whether interactive paper could become a really interesting way of telling news stories or giving out information about what’s happening in the local community.

What is Interactive Newsprint?

What is interactive paper?

Interactive paper is a type of “smart” paper. It is responsive to a human touch, which means sheets of paper can turn into interactive displays. For example, imagine a community news poster with an interactive title. This could be designed to advertise and illustrate articles read aloud at the push of embedded buttons. Alternatively, imagine a home notice board display or picture frame containing active paper to which community club members could broadcast club news in short SMS text messages and voicemails.

We need you

To do this we’d like a group of volunteers to create stories for the interactive paper (we’re calling these volunteers community reporters) using mobile phones, computers and video production tools. We’d like group of volunteers in Surrey to take part in a series of tests to make sure the interactive paper works properly before we give it out. We’re calling this group our ‘prototypers’. And we’d like a group of people from Preston to take the interactive paper and test it in their homes over a much longer period – upto 3 months. We’re calling these people our ‘readers’.

The latest developments

Interactive Newsprint presents at COST

Interactive Newsprint joined the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) network in Lisbon where the focus of activities was firmly on exploring new ways of combining print and digital. The Media Innovation Studio’s Paul Egglestone was invited to present one of two keynote speeches to a multidisciplinary group of over forty academics from across Europe. The talk on the possibilities for Interactive Newsprint offered practical examples of the potential and pitfalls of working with this new technology and featured [...]

Interactive Newsprint and friends debate #digiprint at SxSW 18th, March 2013

“Print is dead! Long live print!” declares the panel description for the ‘Pitchforks and Printed Electronics’ panel at the SxSW Interactive festival. Chaired by the Media Innovation Studio’s Paul Egglestone and featuring the University of Dundee’s very own Tom Metcalfe, Worldcrunch’s Garrett Goodman and Daily Dot CEO Nick White, the panel discussed an alternative digital future, where the internet is made physical. Discussions ranged from community co- design and cutting-edge printed electronics technology via the Interactive Newsprint research project, internet [...]
Interactive Newsprint Demos in Downtown Austin 10th, March 2013

[Paul Egglestone and Jon Rogers demo an interactive Grupo RBS platform] “Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts”. The Interactive Newsprint team are using innovative technology to engage communities interested in creating a new platform for community news. On Saturday night, in a packed bar in downtown Austin, Rogers, Egglestone, Mills and Metcalfe from the Interactive Newsprint research team showed some of the results to hundreds of people attending [...]