2. Polyfoils FIRE UP
Reading & Writing
“What comes after books? What comes after Kindle,
MOOCs, etc.?” – from the O’Reilly Media's Learning Group
“About Us” page.
“Among the several advances of the 20th
century,
nonlinear science is exceptional for its generality.”
– first sentence is the Encyclopedia of Nonlinear Science.
Reading one page after the other is "the missionary
position of reading." – Sven Birkerts, The Gutenberg Elegies.
Polyfoil positions:
They encircle
They egress to the side
They connect
They parallel
They embed on objects
They juxtapose
they relate to the 21st
century ...
Introduction 2
3. a Polyfoil
Introduction 3
1. Scroll Down through
document.
2. Polyfoil to the side.
3. Scroll Sidewise to
Polyfoil panel.
4. Polyfoil panel view.
5. One Way Traffic Jam
The Book is dead!
Newspapers are doomed!
Children don't read!
Maybe they're onto something.
Scrolls to wax tablets,
codices to manuscripts,
Dickens to the
Saturday Evening Post,
textbooks to news to
romance to biography
…
All must fit linear sequences
of words, sections, and ideas.
Introduction 5
6. The Long Dureé
Humans tell stories.
It's their thing.
Real stories are rarely linear.
They bubble up, wrap around,
zig-zag to connect dots
Novels begat readers in long
lines who wanted a straight
ride. Publishers eyed fast
presses and saw pulp fiction's
tight lines.
Linear sequence is an
economy of scale started by
Virgil, spread by Gutenberg,
inculcated at school. Like
representational painting, a
knee-jerk norm.
Many suspect it.
Scientists know it.
The world isn't linear.
Between Homer's cyclic tales
& 20th
century art & science,
documents were linear.
Then came images, film,
comics, which made print
stultifying. Proust & Joyce
broke the linear mold, but
left the masses cold.
Children who groan over
Shakespeare grow into
parents who grumble that
Johnny can't read!
Introduction 6
7. Polyfoils Bust Linearity
Volumes packaged many
ways, to best fit content and
the user. The myth of linear
writing, reading, thinking,
can finally be overcome.
The 1st killer app debuted. MacWrite.
It let users move text anywhere,
liberated from linearity.
INPUT: NONLINEAR. But output linear.
Not anymore.
POLYFOIL OUTPUT: NONLINEAR
The same length as other
text, Polyfoils have more
volume, potentially much
more. Enticing, useful,
intuitive volumes.
Introduction 7
8. More Fit to E-print
Text and Images
fought pitched battles
in 20th
century. Text lost.
The 21st
will be different.
Hyperlink surfing
fosters bikini knowledge,
with too much uncovered.
Polyfoils advance full-
bodied texts, not skinny ones.
Polyfoils let readers
construct versions
they can get the most
out of, unrestrained.
1950
1975
2000
2025
2050
Introduction 8
9. The Polyfoil's the Thing
Polyfoils do the heavy lifting
of electronic display design.
Polyfoils are electronic
writing and reading systems
They offer unlimited
expansion of content.
One user's alternative,
auxiliary, additional content
is another user's central,
chief, critical idea.
Polyfoil intuitive geometry
affords novel sequencing
Introduction 9
