

New machine prints paperbacks on demand for $8 in four minutes - rms
http://seekingalpha.com/article/164700-the-world-of-book-publishing-is-about-to-change?source=yahoo

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goodside
If you to submit an article that has an uninformative and sensationalized
headline like "The World of Book Publishing Is About to Change", please edit
it to something more reasonable. In this case, might I suggest "New machine at
Harvard prints paperbacks on demand for $8 in four minutes".

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cduan
For that matter, the Harvard Book Store is not part of Harvard University. It
is an independent bookstore.

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Psyonic
If I remember right from my summer in Cambridge, it's basically a rebranded
Barnes and Noble, yes?

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pg
No; you're thinking of the actual HU bookstore, the Coop.

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Psyonic
Ya that's right, now I remember

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danw
My local blackwells has had a similar service for a while. The trouble is they
charge more for an on-demand book than an off the shelf one. I've never seen
anyone use the service.

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felixc
The University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada) also has one of these. I'm not
sure when it was introduced, but I think it was at the start of this term.
Thankfully, it is cheaper than off-the-shelf books (at least the two or three
titles I looked at were).

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bhrgunatha
Does anyone have a link to a video of it at work? I'd like to see it in
action.

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ynniv
Just a note that this machine is at Harvard Book Store, which is an
independent business and not part of Harvard University as the shortened HN
title might suggest.

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jacquesm
Interesting! That's cheaper than an amazon 'e-book', and when you're done with
it you can give the book away to the next person.

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xiaoma
Yes, but Scribd E-books can be copied in the blink of the eye and without
exchanging any money at all.

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biohacker42
DRM, sure you could copy a book who's copyright has expired, but there have
been DRM issues with those too. Also many people, me included, prefer the feel
of paper.

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teilo
It is difficult to determine just what, exactly is so revolutionary about this
device. Is it that it is small and easy enough for an untrained operator to
run? Is it affordable enough for a bookstore to install?

I ask, because on-demand book printing is nothing new, and $8 a book has been
achievable for a long time. Lulu.com does it with Xerox iGen3's and 4's,
attached to perfect-binding equipment, with a really snazzy workflow that
automates everything from order to shipping. Of course, a single-machine setup
requires a trained operator and about $1 million. (I'm a certified iGen4
operator, but not affiliated with Lulu).

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rms
I'd guess these don't require trained operators, but the difference that the
article specifies is that the new machine costs $100,000. So it's an order of
magnitude difference from the existing solutions.

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rms
Unanswered is if this has superior print/bind quality compared to existing
print on demand solutions.

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neuralzen
I just helped set one of these up yesterday at a book store(networking, port
forwarding, etc.). Its pretty badass, though I haven't seen it in action yet.
Its going to access google's scanned books too!

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rms
To answer teilo's question, is it hard to use? Once the IT is set up, can a
minimum wage employee reasonably operate the machine?

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_ck_
Remember how in Babylon5 they would turn in yesterday's printed newspaper to
get today's news printed on the recycled pages? I think we are headed that
way. Because reading on paper just has a certain handiness to it no matter how
sophisticated our portable devices are.

