App reads The Indie's dead-tree pages - so you don't have to

Printed pages of lefty paper The Independent can be scanned by a phone app and decoded into links to recently updated words and pictures online. The newspaper, operated by Russian father-and-son duo Alexander and Evgeny Lebedev, is using "augmented reality" app Blippar, which uses a phone's camera to recognise pages from the …

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: Socialist Apps

WTF Eadon.

I just realized why the GNU License is a Good Thing.

[auburnman]

Playing with new toys...

Seems to be a convoluted solution. Could they not have done more or less the same thing with QR codes linking to their articles?

[DaLo]

Re: Playing with new toys...

But then you'd need a QR code on every article, photo and advert which would just link through to a webpage. This system provides an overlay on each section of the paper that can be interactive.

Can't see this having long term appeal and being that practical without really big investment into secondary content. With digital papers and online news though it can't be worth the investment, surely.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Playing with new toys...

It could be an app for Google Glass I suppose. You're wearing them anyway, so it would naturally overlay extra content onto what you're seeing, and is in position to photograph it as well.

Not that I see this being anything other than a cumbersome idea. If you want this at breakfast, read your paper on a tablet.

[El Presidente]

No money at the Indy.

Yet someone can be persuaded to waste money on this rubbish.

[I ain't Spartacus]

It's just a fad I tell thee.

The Indy's PR strapline for the Blippar launch is "wouldn't it be great if your paper could update in real-time?" El Reg feels duty bound to point out that we've been doing exactly that since the 1990s, on this wonderful thing called The internet.

Don't be silly El Reg. That there internet thing will never catch on.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's just a fad I tell thee.

I thought the same - just read the paper online if you need to. I guess the management thought it would add value to the dead tree version but it is clumsy.

[mark 63]

dunce

what? um... I dont get it.

why dont the Indie just put some words and pictures online if thats what they want.

I could see the point of an app that will scan *any* printed page and then go online and find related content, but this dosent seem to be it.

[Jonathan 27]

"Last October a Tokyo newspaper, Shimbun,"

Just as a heads up, every Japanese newspaper name contains the word "Shimbun" which just means newspaper. The publication in question is called "Tokyo Shimbun".