Chuck Salter writes in FastCoDesign about a publishing company that continues to innovate in the personal book field.
First came ‘The Girl Who Lost Her Name’ and ‘The Boy Who Lost His Name’. Now comes ‘The Incredible Intergalactic Journey Home’.
“This time, a lost boy or girl navigates his or her way from outer space back home. Spoiler alert: to the reader’s actual home. The wayward space ship swoops into his or her city and arrives in the child’s neighborhood. The image, the book’s big reveal, incorporates the corresponding satellite photos. That degree of personalization required even more algorithms and developers than Lost My Name’s first book, along with help from NASA, Microsoft, satellite makers, and other unlikely children’s book partners.”
The creators are Lost My Name of East London. What a wondrous book and a steal at $30.
My take: I love this concept and the marvellous execution! (The new book does remind me slightly of Arcade Fire‘s Chrome Experiment, The Wilderness Downtown, which may or may not be still working.) Now imagine this in the video realm. I see no reason, with the state of CGI, digital production and online streaming, that my likeness could not be inserted into productions and animated, for my entertainment only. Maybe not in real-time initially and probably not voice. But imagine your own channel on Netflix, starring or co-starring you! That might be fun.