Students at the KAIST Institute of Information Technology Convergence (ITC) have taken Apple’s API for the page flip and created something really amazing. Check out the video below.

Whether something like this will catch on, I don’t know. There’s always the possibility that the interface will confuse people and users will complain that they keep accidentally turning the page. Others will complain that it’s unnecessary and thumbnails in the sidebar are sufficient for e-book navigation.

Regarding the former, it’s nothing that can’t be solved by giving users the option to turn “smart page-flipping” off. As for the latter, I simply disagree. What KAIST has here is far superior to any traditional navigation. Readers do not always know precisely what page to look for/what term to search for. Rummaging is a large part of the reader-experience, and this prototype caters to that need excellently.

(Via Joshua Schnell.)