The Hi-Low Tech group at the MIT Media Lab has created something profoundly intriguing – a series of pop-up books with an added layer of interactivity.

While the books, in themselves, are certainly something to behold, they hint at a much deeper set of implications, namely: the use of paper-thin electronics that can convey a narrative that responds to either direct or indirect user input. These popables, as they’re named, in combination with technology that reads data from the user’s environment or portable devices, might in the near-term help realize dynamic, customized storytelling – or even something akin to immersive three-dimensional textbooks when integrated with augmented reality technologies.

Until that point, of course, you might simply enjoy them for what they are.

Admission: I did not attend either SXSW event in 2009 (and had I been so-inclined, would likely have opted for the latter).
Like you, I did have access via Twitter and the blogosphere to literally of thousands of real-time updates, most of which were both redundant and lacking in sense of time and place (due largely [...]

Before there was a Heroes comic book series, Marvel created a fantastic series of comics called ‘What-If?’ that lived entirely outside the (admittedly limited) constraints of the existing character and narrative arcs of its properties.
Some of my favorite titles:

What if Conan the Barbarian walked the earth today?
What if Captain America had been elected president?
What if [...]