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The BookMachine: On-Demand Book Printing in 3-5 Minutes
Photo_Designer writes "Engadget has an article about these cool BookMachines that spit out on-demand books in just a few minutes. Sounds cool. Forget eBooks.. get the real thing!" The company website has some more information, though it's a bit suspiciously skimpy on hard specifications.
In USia, however, it's a different story. IMHO, there's a perverse sense of pride in not reading that is slowly crawling through the USian population. More and more people (that I work with, at least) simply want to go home and let the TV do their imagining for them.
So, you could have vending machines which not only print books, but tuck the reader in to bed after bringing them hot coco and a stuffed bear before reading it to them and they still wouldn't take off.
However, for you and I of the dwindling reading population, it is a neat thing.
Nobody reads anymore, huh? So all these giant Barnes and Nobles they're building are just for decoration?
I knew it all along! Now, excuse me, a Simpson's rerun is on and I need it to think for me.
O come on. The technology has been around for (many) years for similar things to allow "out of print" cds to be produced for people interested in music beyond the top 40 pop charts, and I have yet to see it in stores.
If the music industry couldn't get their act together to allow on the spot pressing / burning of their back catalogue it's a pipe dream to hope for this in books.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World" 1 John 4:14
I think this should be part of copyright reform, if you let a piece fall out of print then you lose copyright to it. The technology is here to provide for printing at zero marginal cost to the publisher so there is no excuse for them to not allow continuous printing after the main print run(s) have sold out.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.