Abstract for my presentation on the Summit of The Book

Abstract for my presentation on the Summit of The Book this weekend. A larger event has already started, with plenty of leaders of countries and tons of scrutiny. Emily and Edgar and I are just fish in this big pond. Sitting in the lobby at the Baku Fairmont, in the Flame building, gangster looking people everywhere, Edgar charming all, and thinking about the future:

“Deeper Literacy through more Interactive Text”The power of the written word derived by it’s ’symbol’ nature will not be eclipsed by the more accessible voice interfaces or representational visual media; The five and a half odd thousand years of evolution of writing has produced a complex and rich symbol space which the power of interactive computers will enhance, not make obsolete and we have the potential to be on the cusp of an age of ever deeper literacy.

I will look at this from some perspectives of what interactive text can be, with brief examples of my own commercially available work and that which I am building for my computer science PhD at the University of Southampton. I will also introduce the effort we are making to honour Doug Engelbart on the 50th anniversary of his seminal demo, on the 9th of December this year. This is an effort which I invite you to join us in exploring.