This project sits at the intersection of the creative industries, educational technology and AI. This exciting new project focuses on the development of a new kind of digital reading solution exclusively for young readers aged between 5 and 16 years old. The solution provides them with access to narrative books, illustrated books -- including comics and graphic novels -- as well as audiobooks. This cloud-based service is called a Reading Pass. One in four children in England cannot read well by age 11\. This limits life chances and choices. Great reading skills bring joy and improve educational outcomes (source: The Reading Agency). The Reading Pass service is designed to stimulate and support a passion for reading. It complements books and other reading resources made available by school and public libraries and fills a much needed gap for the one in six schools in the country that do not have a school library. This is a cloud-based service making thousands of age-appropriate books, including graphic novels, audiobooks and ebooks, available to young readers for a flat monthly fee. The service records reading data and user engagement to measure progress in reading skills and provides book recommendations that continuously push the child forward while filtering out material that might be too challenging or difficult for a given reading age. The inbuilt recommendation engine leverages machine learning to surface new and exciting reading choices that motivate the user to read more and immerse themselves in great stories, graphic adventures and audiobooks full of suspense. The service makes recommendations based on the format and content preferences of the user to stimulate a passion for reading. The service can be used on any connected device be it smartphone, tablet, laptop or PC. There is no app to install, no files to download and no specialised equipment required. Reading recommendations and curated book lists from local teachers and national agencies are incorporated into the service, plus parents can monitor (up to a certain age) the reading progress of their children. There will be no in-service advertising and no data shared with third parties. Parents purchase for their children, and no personal information is collected on the young readers themselves. Content is provided by leading British and international book publishers under license.

Bibliophiles would love to buy digital audiobooks from their local independent or high street bookshop. Independent bookshops in turn would be delighted to meet this demand given the rapid growth in the audiobook market. Independent bookshops used to sell audiobooks on tapes and CDs, but audiobooks are now increasingly sold as digital MP3 downloads or streamed. The dominant online audiobooks platforms as operated by Audible, Amazon, and Spotify are proprietary walled gardens. Thus, there is currently no platform that allows bookshops in the UK to sell audiobooks in non-physical format. The project 'Sounds from the North' by Augmented Reading Technologies (ART) Ltd in Newcastle creates an original and innovative approach for independent bookshops to sell audiobooks to their customers. Participating bookshops can sell hardbacks at the recommended retail price (RRP). The purchase price for the hardback -- typically between £20 and £40 - will include free access to the corresponding audiobook for twelve months. In selected cases these "indie exclusives" may also include custom end papers and sprayed edges exclusive to indie bookshops. The bundle of hardback + audiobook is dynamically created by Augmented Reading Technologies (ART) Ltd at check-out. The proposition is loosely modelled on how vinyl records, a premium product for music lovers and aficionados, are sold bundled with MP3 downloads at a premium price. What makes the project innovative is not only the cloud platform for audiobooks to be streamed and accessed entirely in the browser on any connected device through a one-click approach, but the point-of sale platform that allows for the audiobook bundle to be created dynamically and in real-time. This approach avoids the production and supply-chain hurdles for creating such a bundle by existing means because print production and distribution is so different from audiobook production and distribution. The service will help broaden consumer access to audiobooks and is an alternative means for publishers to create "indie exclusives" that support a vibrant and diverse retail market place for books.