French modernists were alarmed, inspired by newspaper's voracious dynamism

Interesting article but unfortunately, as is often the case with serious literary folk talking about technology, I find his concluding observations (hopes) about augmented books completely unconvincing as well as vague.

>> The prospect of paper-based augmented books also holds out the possibility of revolutionary combinations of text, image and sound that would recast the boundaries of literary art.

Sounds like a solution in search of a problem, or worse - the sort of kidutainment geegaws you find in modern libraries.

> as is often the case with serious literary folk talking about technology

You should also see technology folk talking about serious literary folk - it's equally misconstrued and off track.