A concept like the Touch-Hear is something we're probably a while off from realizing, but it represents a very attractive technology: putting a world of knowledge at your fingertips. The advent of the Internet, especially in its current form, represents a bank of information that anyone can access. With the Touch-Hear, you'd be able to tap any word you come across in books, even in different languages, and you'd hear an explanation. Foreign words would be translated for you, and famous events and locations and so on — like the Civil War or the storming of the Bastille — would expounded upon.

The Touch-Hear is a concept by the Design Incubation Centre, and it would have made doing homework a lot easier. And taking tests. If knowledge is something that can be readily fed to the individual, however, does it suddenly become disposable, or is there still an element of studying there that exists when someone has to pore over texts, and absorb the information?

Design Incubation Centre, via Gizmo Watch