From Audio Paper to Next Generation Paper

It has been 24 years since the publication of Wellner's (1993) digital desk, demonstrating the augmentation of paper documents with projected information. Since then there have been many related developments in computing; including the world wide web, e-book readers, maturation of the augmented reality paradigm, embedded and printed electronics, and the internet of things. In this talk I draw on some of my own design explorations of augmenting paper with sound over the years, to illustrate the value of "audiopaper" but also the way these explorations were rooted in the applications and technology of the day. I show that two key technologies have been important to the implementation of audiopaper over the years, and that the bigger opportunity is in connecting paper to the web. This culminates in a vision for two future generations of paper which communicate and interact with the digital devices around them.