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« Quote? Not quite | Main | Subliminal chocolate » Tuesday, September 26, 2006Long distance HancockIn another advance toward the virtual and away from reality, the novelist Margaret Atwood has completed a transatlantic book signing. Using a device she helped to invent called the LongPen, Atwood signed a tablet in Edinburgh and a robotic arm in Toronto mimicked her inscription, "To Mona," on a copy of Atwood's book. "Do you believe it now?" said Atwood triumphantly, via video feed. (Shades of Verizon: "Can you hear me now?") The LongPen includes a video screen and a microphone so that author and fan can interact, sans the arduous process of a book tour. Atwood and the company that manufactures the device -- Unotchit, as in You No Touch It -- see a boon for publishing. I see an invention that stands in the way of the book tour's raison d'etre: making the author real to the reader. Posted by Evan Hughes at 03:13 PM
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