Digital paper that can speak to you has been created by scientists. Researchers from Mid Sweden University have constructed an interactive paper billboard that emits recorded sound in response to a user's touch.
The team envisages that the technology could be used by advertisers, and in the future, it might even be employed for product packaging.
The key to the billboard's capabilities is a layer of digital paper that is embedded with electronics. Speakers are made by printing electromagnets out of conductive ink and stretching the paper over a cavity like a speaker cone behind the billboard. The electromagnets vibrate in response to a current, creating a sound. ...or vice versa, thus acting as a microphone (more)(more)
This scientific advancement is amazing. From our point of view it is also scary. Any first-year electronics student knows that speakers may also be used as microphones.
