Some people tout audiobooks as the future of reading for time-starved multitaskers. But researchers at Xerox's Research PARC in Palo Alto, Calif., have gone way beyond the CDplayer in imagining a variety of high-tech literary aids, which were part of the recent traveling exhibition ''XFR: Experiments in the Future of Reading.''

The Reading Eye Dog (above, left), activated by a friendly pat on the shoulder, uses cameras embedded its eyeballs, pattern recognition

software, and a voice synthesizer to read aloud any printed matter that's placed on its reading stand.

The Listen Reader (above, right) lets readers sink back into an overstuffed chair and run their hands over an illustrated children's book, thereby activating music and audio effects that vary in volume and pitch according to the position of the hands.

For the more action-oriented, the Speeder Reader, built to resemble a driving video game, comes equipped

with a gas pedal that allows readers to accelerate the rate at which words flash by on the screen and a steering wheel that lets them change story ''lanes.'' Instead of the linear strings of words we typically encounter on the page, the machine flashes one word on the screen at a time — a technique known as Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP). In other experiments with RSVP, people have achieved reading speeds of 2,000 words per minute, compared with the average reader's rate of 300 w.p.m.