Slashdot Mirror
Vending Machine For Books Coming Next Year
An anonymous reader writes "CNN writes about a $50,000 machine that can print books on demand. It can print up to 550 pages and put a binding on the book in seven minutes. It will be debuting in a select number of U.S. libraries in 2007. The machine is the 'output' end of a service called On Demand Books, which is also just debuting. From the article: 'Some 2.5 million books are now available - about one million in English and no longer under copyright protection. On Demand accesses the volumes through Google and the Open Content Alliance, among other sources. [Co-founder Dane] Neller predicts that within about five years On Demand Books will be able to reproduce every volume ever printed.'"
Actually I was sort of hoping for a device the size of a novel that opens out and has two e-ink pages, godly battery life, huge solid state memory, with no "features", just basic navigation to flip pages and change book files.
Vending machine books is not an obvious idea, but in my opinion it's not very useful either.
You also forgot to mention that we have laws that state that when you cut a tree down in the US, you need to plant 2 more somewhere. These laws theoretically need to be changed because the number of trees will slowly grow; but in reality, all the trees you plant won't grow, and when they get too dense they compete for light and ground resources and some die. Either way, we're not really net killing trees.
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Not necessarily.
As I don't live in the USA, I'm not a member of the party you're referring to, but I tend to vote green in our local elections - and I think this may be a good idea, even from an environmental perspective.
The reason is simple; I can be relatively sure that a book printed by this machine will be used. If someone is explicitly asking it to print a specific book, pay the cash for it (as I assume it will come with a fee), and wait seven minutes there's a high probability that there is actually a demand for the book. Compare this with dead tree books available today, that are printed in large series, where a certain percentage of the total amount printed is destined to never be opened at all - much less read.
Nothing makes my environmentalist heart weep as much as resources that are spent but never used.
May we live long and die out
within about five years On Demand Books will be able to reproduce every volume ever printed.'
errrr... every Public Domain book that's ever been printed. And scanned. And proofread....
And the "content" industries will be beavering away buying more copyright laws to lock up content till the stars turn to iron...