2010
The Espresso Book Machine
Now here’s a cool development—the Espresso Book Machine® (EBM). Says On Demand Books, “What Gutenberg’s press did for Europe in the 15th century, digitization and the Espresso Book Machine will do for the world tomorrow. Library quality paperbacks at low cost, identical to factory made books, printed direct from digital files for the reader in minutes, serving a radically decentralized world-wide multilingual marketplace.”
EBM locations are already beginning to spring up around the world. It seems likely that this is an unstoppable, game-changing and disruptive technology. This will speed up the decline of the already-faltering traditional book publication industry, and contribute to the ongoing democratization of ideas.
Tagged Espresso Book Machine, today's world
Stuart ShawMarch 31, 2010 at 6:47 am
Hi Laurie
Good find! Publication – in all forms from books to music to art – is zeroing in on zero effort and zero cost, as well as zero time lapse between idea and printed word. The first step came a long while ago now (or so it seems) with free publication methods (blogs, wikis, ebooks, webinars) and the stripping out of barriers between producers and consumers. Have an idea, get it out. This was great, but the counter argument here was always: nice, but it’s not peer-reviewed. Which was in turn countered nicely with the truth: but your publication is a monopoly, a corrupt one at that (a great early article on the so-called ‘serials crisis’ that uncovered the extent of the academic publication rip-off here: http://www.unc.edu/scholcomdig/whitepapers/panitch-michalak.html ). The end result is certain: we can’t go back. If you have something valuable to say, there are now limitless free or near as damn it free ways and means to say it. Peer review will take care of itself: popularity, number of downloads, ratings…
This looks like another piece in the jigsaw. My only question is: does print have a future? If the iPad slays the Kindle and the Sony ereader (which it will), if Apple then adds ibooks to itunes (which it’s already doing), if newspapers refashion themselves away from print (which brings an attendant ecological drawback as well as a logistic issue), is OnDemand going to stay InDemand?
John WoodringApril 6, 2010 at 9:33 pm
While the Espresso Book machine sounds interesting, technology has already made this device obsolete. With e-Readers like the Kindle and Nook along with the iPad the digital files would just go directly on the device. Print is becoming too costly to continue, just look at college textbook costs.
There will always be a need for “hard copy” printouts of materials but e-Readers are becoming more accepted. The iPad signals the type of device students will carry in their backpacks in the near future.