Physical Browser

Imagine if websites were not locked away behind a browser on your rectangular computer screen, what if they were tangible things you could cut up and draw on and stick up on your walls?

I have this ideaPartly inspired by some physical computing experiments from talking to Andrew Sutherland, as well as a long-time desire to mess around with thermal printers

of making a physical browsing device, with a crank that lets you scroll out a website being printed on thermal paper.

This feels so inticing because it changes completely how you interact with websites and the internet as a whole. I can imagine having scrapbooks full of websites, QR codes saved on walls, your bookmarks are literally bookmarks! There’s something so fascinating about having this physical action involved in scrolling, as well as being able to surround yourself with physical information and to cut and highlight and paste snippets into journals. Websites become a tangible material that you can shape at will— while of course losing some aspects of interactivity.