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Revolutionary Espresso Book Machine launches in London
- Oompa 17y agoI wonder what the process is to get it on the machine. If it could just print and bind any pdf, that'd be fantastic. Even more so if you could print your own files.
- kentf 17y agoYa I can imagine that supporting the e-book doctypes would be a huge asset for them.
- chaosmachine 17y agoInteresting idea. The last refuge of the anti-kindle crowd.
- msluyter 17y agoThat was my first thought -- "won't this be obviated by the Kindle (and other e-book readers)?" Perhaps not immediately, but it seems that the markets this serves especially well -- those looking for rare or out of print books, academics, etc... -- are also served by electronic books. I don't own an e-book reader and can understand buying hard copies -- at used book stores, in particular -- but if I did own one, I can't think of many reasons why I would prefer this to an e-book. Perhaps purely aesthetic ones, as in, coffee table books, but how well does this replicate glossy photos?
- sfphotoarts 17y agoa laser printer with a built in binder? Is that new? Our office photocopier/printer can do that. I can sent it a pdf print job and it produces bound 'books'.
- sp332 17y agoThe novelty is not the device, but the business.
- erlanger 17y agoThis new style of manufacturing is great, but I wish I were more excited for it. While some books certainly require no presentation, I really like a solid book with a good, unique design and typography. That being said, I'm very excited to see how it will improve education in the developing world. I see it being used mainly for highly specialized texts (like that one $7,000 book on Amazon), whereas projects like OLPC and devices like the Kindle will provice access to mainstream works and current events. You can't help but feel that paper's going to be gone soon though...
- jnorthrop 17y agoI don't see why the machine couldn't/wouldn't store print-ready pages and it looks like it is capable of printing a 4-color cover. You may lose some quality in the actual materials and the book will likely be limited to one size but the fonts, kerning, page margins, etc. can all be controlled by the publisher.
- erlanger 17y agoProfit margins would be slim, and good design would be over the budget often, I think.
- zandorg 17y agoDoesn't say how much it costs to print a book.
- bmickler 17y agoThe company website says that cost-per-page is $0.01USD (http://www.ondemandbooks.com/hardware.htm http://www.ondemandbooks.com/hardware.htm). This thing is really cool!
- TweedHeads 17y agoGreat idea, perhaps too late. Like adding jets to a zepellin or a turbine to a steam boat. I haven't touched a book in years, and won't in the foreseeable future.
- dschobel 17y agohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMFh5axDKWU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMFh5axDKWU video of the thing in action.