JK Rowling working to bring Harry Potter magic to PS3 "Wonderbook"

Sony reveal ambitious "digital pop-up book" at this year's E3 show.

One of Sony’s surprise announcements at this year’s E3 was that of the “Wonderbook”, an augmented reality peripheral aimed at kids (and with reasonable appeal to big kids too).

A device complete with pages, but featuring patterns where words would usually be, Wonderbook is able to immerse you within its pages, utilising both PlayStation Eye video camera and PlayStation Move wand to allow you to interact with what is essentially a digital pop-up book.

Fiendishly Sony have hooked up with JK Rowling who is assisting in a ‘book’ for the platform entitled ‘The Book of Spells‘ which allows you and your kids to cast spells at a variety of magical creatures, from dragons to wizards, which emanate from the book as the story plays out.

Of course, the idea of augmented reality is that it does exactly that, the creatures and cast fireballs springing out into your living room as you view via your TV. A Harry Potter-esque approach is draw enough for kids, but with Sony mentioning the possibility of a Walking with Dinosaurs tie-in, or even simply releasing a world atlas the limitations are truly only in getting the interaction across Move, Eye and your child – just so long as you can afford the required kit.