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Flip No More

 app that displays figures in textbooks on your phone
  (+7)
(+7) 		  [vote for,
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This is just me ranting...

I've been reviewing a few heavy science textbooks recently, and have started to get extremely annoyed by having to constantly "look back to figure X to understand concept Y" literally 15 times in every chapter (at 30 chapters a book, it adds up). I'm getting seriously peeved. I propose an iphone app that works with the publishers to display figures in a textbook. So, the next time I see "refer back to figure 5" I can simply click the figure on the app and put the phone next to my reading text so I can actually visualize what's going on.

Again, this is just a rant so deletion may be imminent.

—goodmars, Mar 16 2009

This could help Book_20photocopier
[knowtion, Mar 16 2009]

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       I've been in your shoes. Here's a possible solution. On your computer, make a folder for every chapter. Take a snapshot (using your iphone if you wish) of all of the figures and equations. Put all of chapter 1 figures into the chapter 1 folder. Name the jpg's appropriately (fig1, fig2, eq.1, eq.2). Now you don't have to flip back to the previous page. I'm not sure if this works on an iphone alone without a computer, as I don't use an iphone. As an alternative, make a book photocopier as descibed in the link I added.
—knowtion, Mar 16 2009
   

       hey [knowtion]! this is exactly what I propose! except instead of me taking pictures, I would easily be willing to pay the publishers a little money to have all these images preloaded on some server for me to access from my iphone.   

       the life of an academic. . . is awesome!!!!!
—goodmars, Mar 16 2009
   

       I say - just put everything on Wikipedia. Problem solved. Who needs copyrights anyways?
—imho, Mar 16 2009
   

       //just put everything on Wikipedia//
somewhere in the netiverse there's some guy looking over usage stats thinking "what the hell, that dude should just buy a book" (referring to my almost daily reference to some basic science pages)
—FlyingToaster, Mar 16 2009
   

       This gives me an idea!
—eight_nine_tortoise, Mar 16 2009
   

       don't big texts come with CDRoms?
—bungston, Mar 16 2009
   

       To make the solution even more convenient, accompany each bit of text which says "refer back to figure 5" with either a bar code or qr code.   

       Then, install on your cell phone a bit of software that takes a picture of the code, then shows the appropriate diagram.
—goldbb, Mar 16 2009
   


 

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