Netbiblo is a Spanish editorial which developed a new kind of literature, by connecting traditional paper books to the Internet through an image which resembles a code bar and can be read by cellphones. This way, multimedia advantages are attached to common literature, allowing the reader to improve his experience.
So far, Netbiblo has been working on 22 different books, each one in 6 different languages. Right now a couple of this books can already be purchased online at
Bidibooks Official Website for €12,9. When you read the codes with your cellphone, contents from Flickr, YouTube or Wikipedia show up in order to enlarge the information already introduced in the book, and most important, keep it up to date.
Kaywa Reader is the software Bidibooks use in order to translate the information from the codes to a valid URL address, it can be downloaded for free (and in some cases, such asNokia's model N95, is already installed). In order to use the virtual links on the book, you need a cell phone with a camera to take a picture of the code, which then, with the reader can be decoded and redirected to the matching website (obviously, an Internet connection on your cellphone is required!).
This is surely a great idea, but still needs a couple of improvements. Not only countries where cellphone applications aren't thatdeveloped will need more time in order to take advantage of what this new type of books can offer, but also consumers need to know that the contents online will be accurate and available through time and not become obsolete if one day theweb page disappear.
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