[Summary]
The @folio project is a mobile device for texts designed as early as
October 1996 by Pierre Schweitzer, an architect-designer living in
Strasbourg, France. It is meant to download and read any text and/or
illustrations from the web or hard disk, in any format, with no
proprietary format and no DRM. The technology of @folio was novel and
simple. It is inspired from fax and tab file folders. The flash memory
is "printed" like Gutenberg printed his books. The facsimile mode is
readable as is for any content, from sheet music to mathematical or
chemical formulas, with no conversion necessary, whether it is
handwritten text, calligraphy, free hand drawing or non-alphabetical
writing. An international patent was filed in April 2001. The French
start-up iCodex was created in July 2002 to develop and promote the
@folio project.
***
The @folio project is a mobile device for texts designed as early as
October 1996 by Pierre Schweitzer, an architect-designer living in
Strasbourg, France.
It is meant to download and read any text and/or illustrations from the
web or hard disk, in any format, with no proprietary format and no DRM.
The technology of @folio was novel and simple. It is inspired from fax
and tab file folders. The flash memory is "printed" like Gutenberg
printed his books. The facsimile mode is readable as is for any
content, from sheet music to mathematical or chemical formulas, with no
conversion necessary, whether it is handwritten text, calligraphy, free
hand drawing or non-alphabetical writing. All this is difficult if not
impossible on a computer or ebook reader (in the late 1990s and early
2000s).
The screen of the lightweight prototype takes 80% of the total surface
and has low power consumption. It is surrounded by a translucent and
flexible frame that folds to protect the screen when not in use. @folio
could be sold for US $100 for the basic standard version, with various
combinations of screen sizes and flash memory to fit different needs.
Intuitive navigation allows to "turn" pages as easily as in a print
book, and allows to sort out and search documents as easily as with a
tab file folder, and choose one’s own preferences for margins,
paragraphs, font selection and character size. There are no buttons,
only a round trackball adorned with the world map in black and white.
The trackball can be replaced with a long and narrow tactile pad on
either side of the frame.
The flash memory allows the downloading of thousands of hypertext
pages, either previously linked before download or linked during the
download. @folio provides an instant automatic reformatting of
documents, for them to fit the size of the screen. For "text" files, no
software is necessary. For "image" files, Pierre conceived a
reformatting software called Mot@Mot (Word@Word in French) which could
be used on any other device. This software received much attention from
the French National Library (BNF: Bibliothèque Nationale de France),
especially for its old books (published before 1812) and illustrated
manuscripts.
An international patent was filed in April 2001. The French startup
iCodex was created in July 2002 to develop and promote the @folio
project.
To this day, @folio has stayed a prototype, because of lack of funding
and because of the language barrier, with only two articles in English
in 2007 -- one in Project Gutenberg News and one in TeleRead about
Pierre Schweitzer’s dream -- for dozens of articles in French.
Even the best researchers can’t do much with no support, no funding,
and no interpreter (from French to English) to help them get through
the language barrier.