
Book Machine at Harvard Bookstore - Jakob
http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2009/09/event-book-machine-at-harvard-bookstore.html
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NathanKP
I wrote a better article about the Espresso Book Machine about five months
ago. It has quite a few more details for those who are interested.

[http://inkweaver-review.blogspot.com/2009/05/espresso-
book-m...](http://inkweaver-review.blogspot.com/2009/05/espresso-book-machine-
better-than.html)

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10ren
There's one here in Melbourne already, out of 15 in the world.
<http://www.ondemandbooks.com/our_ebm_locations.htm> We usually get cool stuff
last.

$US100,000 is a long way from mass-market, but we already have cheap
home/office colour laser printers, so it seems conceivable. Imagine one in
every library, kinkos, post office, video store... very science fiction.

~~~
NathanKP
Yeah it is very far off from the mass-market yet. And the problem is that
before the price goes down it will have to reach a sort of saturation point
after which its own popularity will take over.

You're lucky to live near on of the fifteen in the world. ;)

~~~
10ren
Actually, it doesn't sound too promising:

 _This bookstore has an Espresso Book Machine which sometimes works._
[http://www.librarything.com/venue/34802/Angus-&-Robertso...](http://www.librarything.com/venue/34802/Angus-&-Robertson
---Melbourne-CBD---Cnr-Bourke-&-Elizabeth-Streets)

~~~
10ren
I went and had a look, but it wasn't running. Apparently, it's usually on
between 10am and 3pm (though that's not stated on their website).

There was a sample book, and though the cover and binding were great, the
printing was a significantly less bold than a real book. Maybe low toner, but
that was the show-off "sample" book... The print also looked just like those
pdf's you see of scanned books - not as good as a real book. I was
unimpressed, because I think it could easily look much better.

The catalog is only about 100 books, more expensive than I'd thought, starting
at about $16 AUD (about $14 USD). Range should change with Google's massive
out-of-copyright catalog - price too, I hope.

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elblanco
This is very cool tech. Hopefully it finds it's way to pretty much everywhere.
It's a mystery to me why it hasn't shown up in every Border's and Barnes &
Nobles yet. I'd gladly pay a few bucks to get some classic literature printed
on demand.

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marram
[http://www.thesponty.com/events/242040/Unveiling_of_The_Book...](http://www.thesponty.com/events/242040/Unveiling_of_The_Book_Machine_at_Harvard_Bookstore)

~~~
alec
Why not just link to the actual Harvard Book Store event page?

<http://www.harvard.com/events/press_release.php?id=2390>

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10ren
video of version 1 <http://www.bookshop.unimelb.edu.au/bookshop/p?Z.ebm>

video of version 2 <http://www.ondemandbooks.com/video2.htm>

The videos have a boring start but become cool.

