Digital innovations show reading's future
Tech firms are showcasing the latest digital technologies and products to help people read and learn at the 2020 Shanghai Book Fair.
In the Future Reading Pavilion, innovations on display include artificial intelligence for online education and digital entertainment, next-generation e-book reading and an interactive and portable audio library.
Colorful e-book readers and AI-featured student tablets are displayed in the booth of iFlytek, an AI firm with applications such as voice recognition, machine translation and knowledge graphs.
An e-book reader designed for cartoon lovers.
iFlytek’s latest e-book supports 4,096 colors, which allows users to read cartoons and animation contents with e-ink technology. The e-ink, an eye-protection technology, is adopted by Kindle models but Amazon doesn’t have Kindle supporting color.
IFlytek also launched a student pad X2 Pro during the book fair, which features interactive learning content in classes such as math, English and physics. It offers students customized advice and exercises based on grade, location, school and correction rate in previous quizzes, based on AI technologies.
Also in the pavilion, Shanghai-based online reading app Spiritual Wealth Club built a Future Study Room, with capsule-shaped spaces for people to simulate different reading scenes such as on road, in car and in bed.
The Future Study Room built by Shanghai-based online reading app Spiritual Wealth Club.
Spiritual Wealth Club held an award ceremony for its most popular authors, such as Li Lei and Lu Jinbo. They provided on site shows and held live streaming programs as talking authors.
Ximalaya, a Shanghai-based online audio service provider, displays its Nano (Xiaoya) smart device in the booth, which it called a “portable and smart library.”
Nano can access Ximalaya’s database covering over 10,000 popular audio books. It offers interactive services for users.
With AI technologies, users can find audio book resources easily by scanning book front pages or pictures with Nano’s camera. The device can also broadcast content automatically when it detects users are approaching its camera.
The Nano device is on display at the book fair.
