Pop Push Press makes Al Gore’s book look hip on the iPad

Al Gore has always been a tech geek; the former Vice President once claimed that he was the guy that invented the internet. Since he left office Gore has been trying to educate the public about the environment with some help from technology like his feature film An Inconvenient Truth. With some help from Pop Push Press, Gore’s latest book called Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis was transformed into an interactive read for the iPad.

Pop Push Press looked past the traditional format of the e-book and loaded Our Choice with a ton of mixed media based features to get readers engaged in the content. The app has obviously retained the 400 pages from the print addition and they added the following: images, more than 30 interactive infographs, over an hour of documentary footage, narration by Gore. The app will retail for a special price of $4.99 for a limited time in the iTunes store.

Users can manipulate various multimedia features with a pinch of the fingers on the iPad’s screen. The transition from text to multimedia in the app is a snap according to Gore. He said, “There is nothing between you and the content, and there is no computer hurdle to clear. You just touch it with your finger, blow on it and manipulate it. It's very intuitive.” While it may seem absurd, the former Vice President is serious about you blowing on your iPad. The motion can activate an infograph that demonstrates how a wind turbine can power a home. The faster you blow air, the more power is generated by the turbine; stop and the home is powered by a battery.

Punch Pop Press’ work on Our Choice is a huge leap in the marriage of books and tablet computers. Instead of plain text telling you about the possibility of geothermal energy in the US, you can check out an engaging infographic that breaks down potential by state. Gore put it in perspective by comparing his experiences with newspaper and TV coverage.

“I remember when I was a kid, television was just going in. My family didn't get its first TV until I was 10 years old. I remember a stretch of quite a few years when people would say they had read a story in the New York Times, and then they would say, ‘I saw Walter Cronkite report the same story’ but my experience of it was completely different. As we become bimedial, I think that it's a richer experience. And I don't think anything has to be lost.”