Thumb Thing helps you keep books open

Frequent Boing Boing and Make contributor Charles Platt is guest editing Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools newsletter, and his picks are wonderful.

When I was a teenager I remember reading a science-fiction story which predicted that by the 21st century, information would be piped directly into the brain. In the story, a character encountered that most archaic object, an old-fashioned book, and felt appalled that people in the 20th century had been forced to endure so much physical discomfort, holding books and turning their pages manually--or trying to prevent the pages from turning if there was a breeze.

Well, here we are in 2006, and the science-fiction prediction has failed to pan out. While we're waiting for wetware implants, we'll just have to make do with a stopgap solution: A plastic thumb aid.

It costs $3. Link