METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR VIRTUAL INTERACTION WITH PHYSICAL DOCUMENTS

The present invention is directed to enhancing a user's interaction with a physical document, such as a page of a book, by supplying the user with additional information related to the physical document in a simple, easy to use fashion. Exemplary embodiments provide this additional information as digital content that is displayed as an overlay upon the document. The overlay can be in the form of a flat digital display that can be moved about a surface of the physical document. The absolute position of the movable display is tracked, so that digital content presented on the display is related to a particular position of the display over the document. This capability can be exploited to, for example, provide an on-the-fly translation of a particular document, with the translation being provided as the movable display is scanned over the words printed on a document to be translated.