Translator: Elisabeth Buffard Reviewer: Tatjana Jevdjic
Thank you for inviting me.
I'm going to tell you about...
When I say 'I', I mean Editions Volumique,
with my partner Bertrand Duplat,
who has engineering background,
who's worked in video games,
for more than 20 years,
and I as a designer.
I have worked for and on the screens for 20 years.
As you could see, we thought,
"Well, there have never been so many books around us",
and we love it.
Earlier, you said that
you buy two books a week from Amazon,
that's quite what I do.
After a while,
it creates a problem,
on my bookshelves.
So we thought, "Why do people --
Ah, ok, I'll tell you when,
you are the remote control, here,
I'm just pretending --
so -- to the next one, please --
I was always told, when I was studying
as a designer, but then, 20 years ago,
I was told, "Oh, books are over."
Anyway, I think 40 years ago,
people were already saying, "That's dead and gone.."
No, honestly, books have never been so beautiful.
Printing techniques have never been so precise,
we've never had such beautiful colours,
children's books are amazing:
pop-ups, foldings,
books you can touch, eat,
anything you can imagine, really.
So we decided, modestly,
when I say 'we', we didn't say,
"So, two weeks beforehand, we're going to do this",
we started with some little experiments
two, three years ago,
so we can do this.
I mean, "No, when I read a book,
I have my phone in my pocket, and the two are not antinomic,
the two can communicate.
And most of the time, for instance, in my specific example,
when I work, I only work on paper,
some little sketches, and I also have my phone,
I go on Wikipedia, I go on YouTube,
I check information,
and I collaborate in between.
So, one of my first examples --
now there is sound, I hope we can play that sound --
or I have to simulate the sound, there,
you have a little melody, it's a Simon game.
It's a book on paper that -- ah, here it is, great --
that knows which page it's at. OK?
We inserted a little melody, and to reproduce that melody,
each page had a note,
and you had to reproduce it.
Here, for example, at a certain point,
this book, you have to hit it to get it to react.
It was riddled with sensors.
Actually, it's a real book in which we put a lot of sensors.
Basically, like what you have in your iPhone.
At a certain point, that book tells you, "Go to page 23, you have 3 seconds."
If you go to it in 4 seconds, for 20 minutes,
it sulks, it doesn't react anymore. OK.
At a certain point, there, you are told,
"Turn northward."
This book has a compass, it has small LEDs you can hardly see.
Actually, in order to get the right information,
you have to find the North.
So, you end up with this book,
you're having a walk,
you hit it, you shake it,
at some point, you have to turn it upside down...
Next, we asked ourselves questions --
so, we need sound here too, but it doesn't really matter --
what does "pong" mean in a book?
Actually, it's simple:
there are 2 pages,
you have to turn the right pages in rhythm 10 times in a row.
OK? And if you win, you hear a blip-blip sound saying, "You won".
There you are.
So, that's a whole series of experiments,
when we thought,
"We won't oppose everything we have learnt in interactive video games
in 30, 40 years,
since it's truly extraordinary, what has developed,
and if, on the contrary..."
...it's a rather strange thing,
it's hard to concentrate like that --
So you understood,
basically, we had decided to make paper video games.
Let's take the concepts of video games,
and put them on paper.
The next example, for example,
-- I'll go a little faster --
yes, there, you can go quite fast,
those were the first experiments,
you see, on a sticky note,
the sticky says if it's at the back...
you can... there... move forward...
forward, left, right,
we have a little Arduino card,
and what's interesting here,
it's that kind of experiment, it doesn't cost anything.
When I say "nothing", it's because an Arduino card costs 23 dollars,
it's open-source,
sensors cost 1 dollar.
So, that is for 100 dollars,
and a little brain work,
you can make rather simple experiments.
To finish, this book, at some point,
we put in a breathalyzer.
You had to blow on it, like this,
and to make it work, you had to have 3 grams of alcohol in your blood.
(Laughter)
So that was... that's how it works.
I'm not sure we'll put it on the market,
we'd get in trouble, but all this is possible.
I mean, all of a sudden, now, we can say that everything is possible.
Then, it's about ideas and what use it has.
Because then, we thought, "OK, we had fun doing it",
then we thought, "There, it works, we'll do something else."
So here, for example, the next example.
You can move forward...
Ah, right, the video wasn't working.
This is the famous vanishing book.
It has happened to me once.
It's a vanishing book, so I'll skip it.
You'll see it on video.
But basically, the idea is: from the moment you open this book,
in 20 minutes, it vanishes, it self-destroys. That's it.
No, that is the book turning its own pages by itself.
The vanishing book is quite simple, quite final.
I mean, at some point,
you open the book, in 20 minutes,
basically, it's heated fax paper,
and fax paper is heat-sensitive, and it spreads.
So you really have a book which,
from the moment you open it, vanishes.
So, it raises a question,
"Am I reading it now?"
You see, sometimes, a book, you open it,
you look at it, "yeah, I'll read it later",
no, it says no, it takes control.
We have another example here.
That's... Bertand and I thought,
"But, what is a magical book?"
It's a book turning its own pages on its own.
So it's a book really turning its own pages on its own
and that knows what page it's at.
Next, we made a little application,
since that book is connected to the Internet,
on the iPhone,
and the book tells the iPhone what page it's at.
When you start your video game,
it's at the level matching the page,
and if you change level, it triggers the page turning.
Then, it becomes interesting,
as all of a sudden we have something tangible here,
the paper book,
that would give information to the digital world
and vice versa, the digital world would give information to the tangible world.
To the next experience.
Here.
There is sound here too.
It's very simple. It doesn't matter, I'll imitate it for you.
It's "Peter and the Wolf", you know.
Now, we noticed, up to 16 to 20 pages,
we would put a small book on it, on my iPhone,
There is actually an iPhone,
electricity passes through the paper.
So it's a sound book.
Depending on where you put your fingers,
that's for children, it's very simple,
they have to press their thumb on the red parts,
it will trigger sounds.
And it's getting interesting here,
-- so, OK, you press the cat,
you have the whole part on the cat,
the hunter, Peter, the wolf and all --
but when you go back and you press the cat again,
it's a computer,
it knows you've already been to the cat,
so it will tell you something else.
Suddenly, a dialogue is established
between this small book, 16 pages only,
but when you go back,
or when you go back to the cat 4 times,
the cat says, "OK, right, I understand, I'm leaving."
There, many things can happen, many things.
So here too, it's interesting,
as regards the way the authors...
since that's what is interesting.
It's not just transferring what existed on paper
or on TV or on film,
to these new supports,
it's authors inventing --
when I say, "Authors, that's all sorts:
designers, engineers,
writers, musicians --
new ways to tell stories.
So, next example.
Here too, it was the idea.
I saw my son, my little boy --
well, I have two boys --
a 6-year-old,
who had taken my turned-off iPhone,
and he was going like this...
He was flying it like a plane.
I said, "Wow! That's what is interesting!
It's no virtual reality
or that kind of things that are a little vague,
extraordinary, but here, suddenly,
that is the pawn.
And I remembered that, at my parents,
I was doing the same thing with my remote control,
for me it was Star Wars, of course,
I was pretending it was the spaceship attacking the Death Star with the remote.
And suddenly, the idea is to place that small object,
that small computer,
on paper. So very quickly,
I made a sort of pirate board game
and the telephone, just using the accelerometers
there are some squares, it knows on which square it is.
We don't use the camera or anything,
we're very low tech,
we already use some technology,
we decided to only use paper, plastic,
wood to put on top.
So here, when we have two,
the two pones know where they are, reciprocally,
and so they can communicate.
So we really went for the game and the toy.
At first, we were only going for book,
and little by little, we moved towards game and toys,
first because it was rather easy, and intellectually, it's fast.
We get ideas very quickly, and in addition, it's fun.
But that's different, and my children like it.
But the idea is to do this.
Here it's four of us: Bertrand, my partner,
Julien Hognon, the developer
and Farid Bensalem, the game designer,
and we develop lots of projects like this.
Now to the next slide.
So earlier...
Second part. I'm nearly on schedule.
The second part was...
We talked about screens earlier,
getting smaller, things like that,
and also the position we have in front of screens.
Let's say some time ago,
we were sitting by the fire, telling each other stories face to face.
Second part.
Board games, chess games, go, everything you can imagine,
card games, they're all face to face.
There's a lot of interaction between the two persons.
Suddenly, television, cinema appears,
and we find ourselves side by side.
That's a brand new thing.
We're side by side. We can talk.
By the way, you will notice,
my characters always smile.
It's always great.
There's no point in saying, "It's right, it's wrong."
Truly extraordinary.
Next stage: 30 years ago,
we are on computers.
So we're back to back.
You saw, in your offices,
we're all side by side, but we don't look at one another anymore.
However, you saw my little zeros and my little ones that we communicate a lot.
It happens by the way.
At the workshop, for example, we exchange emails.
Julien is next to me, but I email him.
We don't even look at each other.
Sometimes, we look at each other, fortunately, but...
it's a kind of communication.
For about 10 years,
the next slide is worse than anything else,
it's a bit... even worse,
we're like that all the time,
we're just like that.
We're really in our own small universe,
which is fine, except that one with a dead battery,
on the right, but now it's a tragedy, you see.
What is going to happen?
The idea is a simple one,
-- and with the emergence of tablets, it's the same thing --
it's to say, we're in our own little universe,
but actually, if you put it horizontally...
the emergence of tablets, for example, at home,
-- I am a true geek, I have everything I need at home,
as soon as a new gadget comes up, it automatically goes on the table,
in front of the TV, horizontally,
and suddenly, that's when it's getting interesting,
for the next slide,
and now -- next slide please --
that's when we ended up face to face but connected.
Here, we have both.
I mean, we find that happiness again,
that we can feel playing cards, playing a game,
earlier, we were talking about electric trains,
or things like that,
face to face, on all fours and all,
but connected.
We get both.
It's getting interesting too.
It is for me anyway.
So, a few experiments.
Next, on this small phone,
I started buying stuff about electric trains,
little characters, putting them on my phone.
I teach in various schools,
at HEAD in Geneva and ENSAD in Paris.
At HEAD, I bought this,
and when I arrived, I put it down
and I started putting my little characters on it,
and I noticed that my students were beginning to play with it,
and particularly they were beginning to tell themselves stories.
That's when you start thinking,
"Ah, there's something here", because,
really, we would play Polly Pocket,
you see, the little...
I am a little over 40,
I was with students playing dolls...
and you think... but we would tell ourselves stories,
and actually, we invented, well, invented...
we developed a whole narration system
of what's going on
if you start putting objects
on those phones, on those screens.
To tell the truth, I'm fed up with screens.
I mean, those cold screens...
So I know touch screens are emerging,
I mean, touch haptic devices
that is allowing physical feedback,
since those screens they're cold and flat.
Try typing a very large text
on your phone or your tablet,
pretty soon your fingers will hurt.
Keyboards are soft for a purpose, you see.
All that pleasure is missing,
anyway I do personally.
So, next experiment for example.
I'll be quick.
We started, we put everything on this iPad,
poor thing, we put everything.
Precisely, with our experiments,
to see what it would be like,
we managed to find a rather simple solution.
We eventually make this phone, the screen,
recognize the object place on it,
but without a camera, without anything,
no battery, no nothing. It's magic.
It's not magic at all,
it's thermal ink, conducting electricity,
and we make iPad that under those little pawns,
there are several points
that correspond to several fingers,
and basically, I'm simplifying,
if there's a finger, it's pawn #1,
if there are two fingers, it's pawn #2,
and it goes up to 11 fingers on the iPad.
Don't ask why 11, it's a mystery.
10, I understand, 11...
On the iPhone, it's 5,
that's understandable still.
So we managed to develop a whole system like this.
Now, next stage.
That's experiments with little characters.
Still in the very low tech style.
Our little pawns we put on the screen,
we think,
"Well, what about putting fiber optics in it?"
So now...
I don't know if you can see it clearly,
we manage to display on its small face
what is under its base, actually.
It's very simple.
Moreover, the little character is recognized, it is followed,
I have a rather ridiculous video,
I won't show it to you,
but I'm in it,
it makes my children laugh,
and I'm in this little character, trapped.
It's beginning to get quite a lot of possibilities.
So we carry on with that kind of development.
Other...
This technique with conductor inks
allowing object recognition
but it works on paper, wood, plastic,
anything you want.
Here it's a card game.
An old experiment,
it's just a war card game,
the simplest game in the world,
between white ink and black ink.
Depending on the card you put down,
the drawing of the card will be continued on screen.
Now, as a designer and a graphic designer,
I'm interested in this, I mean,
being able to prolong that paper,
that piece of paper,
on a creen, which will come alive,
and reciprocally, it will impact the text.
We could imagine I put down my newspaper,
Libération,
and automatically, on the right,
I can see the comments,
because it's...
Le Figaro, whatever you want,
but the comments on this article.
Because most of the time, I think...
You do the first one, for example,
I go on Rue 89, things like that,
sometimes, I go directly to the comments.
I see the title and I think,
"Well, what do people think about it?"
Because at the moment, it's party time,
with MegaUpload, it's very funny,
to see what's going on,
the comments are interesting.
Because the news, we know it already.
So, next experiment.
I'll be on schedule.
Yes! Now it's a real little video game.
The children have a little book,
and at the end of this little book,
they will be able to cut a small house out of the page,
-- you can't see it very well, I'm sorry --
a small paper house that will be stuck,
placed on the iPad, directly.
The idea, it's a little game,
games are complicated to explain,
the idea is to catch these little ghosts,
and we have to guess what door they will come through.
And there, you can't see it very well,
but you play it in the dark,
it is a horror film for 7-year-olds.
They love it, actually,
zombies, ghosts, and all that stuff..
And at the same time, it's a night-light,
because in fact, it is a very big lamp,
your phone,
I am sure that you all use it as electric lamp.
And in fact, in the night,
you light up just below the little house,
and inside, you've got a kind of small paper mirrors,
and you really have the impression
that light is coming out of windows.
And so we have a real little game,
and this is interesting
I use that word a lot,
it is that actually children do not ask themselves questions,
like "How does it work?"
They accept it right away,
this is a game, there is an iPad,
it is a bit expensive,
but from the moment we have the iPad,
the object that we place on it,
it is a 2-euro-worth object made of paper.
There.
Then, next experiment.
This is the last one, by the way.
I brought it here, you can test it later.
We have a cute little book,
I hope, here,
with a history of small balloon,
and, in the end, we have a small object, here.
And if you get a chance to have a tablet,
you can continue this story on the iPad.
I will finish here.
It takes a little over our first experiments with the balloon,
moreover, practically, this is the same balloon that continues to follow us.
And then I put down the balloon,
so there, it will be difficult with this monitor,
the small balloon on the iPad
and, you'll see it for real later on,
It has a pretty interesting optical effect,
since we just put in...
by placing a virtual shadow,
you really get the impression that the balloon is taking off.
You'll see, it's an optical illusion
which works very well,
to my astonishment, to tell you the truth.
I did the test like this,
and all of a sudden, placing a shadow,
and the shadow becomes smaller,
and you really get the impression that the ball takes off.
On video, it is a little difficult,
I believe that with streaming, they can see it better,
but in any case, I invite you to try it,
I have my little iPad coming out like that.
Here, it is just a walk.
Then, at level... two minutes, plenty of time...
it's party time!
The idea, initially, to tell you the truth,
I wanted to use the microphone,
I thought it would be interesting
to talk about non-tangible, tactile interfaces
and I really like...
I had made a web site a long time ago,
where it was necessary to blow into the microphone to navigate the web site.
It worked very well.
When I say 'work',
it is that people really participated happily in it,
and it is always very funny to blow on your monitor,
to navigate a web site.
I said to myself, "I'll make a little paper balloon
these iPad and these phones have microphones,
I'll blow on it for... I have my little balloon,
I'm super happy, and all,
and of course what happens?
I blow on my balloon,
Yeah, it really takes off...
I say to myself, "Oh, it doesn't quite work."
And so we started on the interface...
It was Julien, the developer, who told me,
"Well no, use your finger, it will be simpler."
And so, in fact, you simulate the wind with your finger
and you are going to give the direction of the wind.
The stronger you blow, the more the ball will take off.
And there is a whole series of discoveries.
I'm nearly done.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)