Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

The Espresso print on demand machine gets a nice write up in Fortune Small Business Magazine as part of their “10 big ideas for 2007″ series. Described as an “ATM for books,” the Espresso machine is basically a vending machine for printed material, instantly producing a custom-made book from digital files. As the dominance of the huge bricks-and-mortar stores gives way in the clicks-and-mortar reality of a “print is dead” digital future, machines like Espresso could fill an extremely useful niche, turning any location into a bookstore. For instance, I took a couple of flights over the holidays, and I’m always totally stymied by the selection in an airport bookstore. Why do they only carry a totally narrow and commercial selection? Well, because of space, obviously. Imagine if you could choose from millions of titles, instead of from just a few hundred? Books could one day be distributed like hot food used to come out of a window at an Automat.

From the article: “The machine can print, align, mill, glue and bind two books simultaneously in less than seven minutes, including full-color laminated covers. It prints in any language and will even accommodate right-to-left texts by putting the spine on the right. The upper page limit is 550 pages, though by tweaking the page thickness and type size, you could get a copy of War and Peace (albeit tough to read) if you wanted.”
Forbes Small Business: An ATM for Books