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Bookish researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs in Bristol, England, are working on an experimental e-book that allows users to flick through pages just as they would reading real books, magazines, and newspapers.

"We want to convince users that they are real books," said Anthony Sowden, a researcher at HP Labs Bristol.

Early Prototype

The devices, dubbed Digital Media Viewers, were previewed to a group of European press this week as an example of the kind of digital-media research taking place at the company's U.K. research lab.

Although HP representatives say they have no plans to sell the viewers as HP products, they are testing 30 of the devices internally to gather information on what kind of future devices might interest consumers.

The viewers are lightweight and roughly the size of an opened book, with displays that feature about the same resolution as the screen of an average laptop computer. Much of the innovation lies in the software, however, which allows the user to turn pages using built-in touch pads.

Future Uses

In the future, people may use similar devices to read books and newspapers downloaded from the Web, the HP researchers said. They also envision people using such devices to view other media such as digital photo albums and motion pictures.

However, researchers said the display resolution and battery consumption of the viewers will have to be improved before they could gain wide adoption.

"We see this as the beginning of the new multimedia and interactive books that are emerging," Sowden said.

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