Now you can buy books from ATM machines
By Jawad Masood | October 31st, 2009
Google partners with Espresso Book Machine (EBM) which is like an ATM machine that can produce a perfect bound, top quality book in minutes. The book that the machine prepares for you is just like the one you buy from market. The printing of pages, printing of cover, binding and cutting, everything takes places runtime at that machine. You can order any book using the screen in front of you, whose soft copy is available, and get it printed for in few minutes. No need to visit book stores or wait for the shipment to arrive from the online book store. It’s easy, it’s economical and it’s cool.
The Espresso Book Machine (EBM) is a product of On Demand Books and recently partnered with Google. The database currently has more than 2 million books in it and is expanding as a part of Google Book Search project. User can also give the machine his/her copy in .pdf form using CD or flash drive and the machine can print that too!
The Espresso Book Machine. Photograph: David Parry/PA
The machines gives a ATM feel and looks. Hopefully when they make it common in public it will have only a few portion visible to the customer, just like ATM machine. The printing cost is very economical, like a penny per page, however yet no official price is announced. As I write this article, there has been 25 location on which this machine’s been deployed. See the complete location list of EBM. Here are some of the remarkable features of the EBMs: (for a complete information about EBM visit this PDF file size: 1.4 MB)
- The trim size is variable between 8.25″ x 10.5″ and 4.5″ x 5.5″. So the publisher’s original size can generally be matched. Readers will detect no difference between the EBM copy and the publisher’s edition
- Binding: Perfect-bound (see video)
- Interior: B&W (with a color option at certain EBM sites)
- Page-Count: 40 to 830 pages
- Speed: A 300-page book in less than 4 minutes
- File format: Standard PDF for book block and cover. Books can be selected onsite, online, or even uploaded in person from CDs, flash drives, etc
This technology can completely change the book selling and businesses. A bookstore can have only one such machine and no books at all. Customer can come with his/her own PDF of book or can search from the database and print it at that moment and get a new, fresh smelling, book to home. If you still can’t believe in it, see the videos below:
November 2nd, 2009 at 2:40 am
Great, put more people out of jobs, thats just what we need!
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:46 am
Wow , exciting !
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:46 am
Wow , exciting !
November 10th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
AUTOMATED TELLER MACHINE MACHINE?!!!!!!!!!!
November 12th, 2009 at 8:45 am
'Great, put more people out of jobs, thats just what we need!'
You realize that there is almost no need for human interaction in book printing as is, so this isn't changing the situation at all.
November 14th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
I'm not one to nit pick grammar that often, but yours is atrocious. You have your own website, clean it up a little. Reading this post was painful.
November 18th, 2009 at 3:13 am
You do not have to be an economics major to realize that though this may temporarily put people out of jobs, in the long run it could create more, and higher paying jobs. Who is going to build the machine? Sell the machine? Repair the machine? Develop new software for the machine? Find more books for the machine? What about the business owners who will have this machine in there coffee shop and make money off of it, which can go towards paying their waitresses higher wages? Come on, think a little.
November 19th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
Hmmm… “like an ATM,” isn't that just called a vending machine. What next, “Now you can buy Cokes from ATM machines?” And I have concerns over the idea that “Readers will detect no difference between the EBM copy and the publisher’s edition,” or “The printing cost is very economical, like a penny per page.” Heck, cancel my Barnes and Noble card and sign me up. My office charges 15 cents a copy and this machine sound great.
November 20th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Thats good…hope to get this in other parts of wolrd
December 20th, 2009 at 12:42 am
I have seen this before but its still good. I am glad for this.
February 16th, 2010 at 11:09 pm
What a cool idea. I was just thinking the other day. “what will Google think of next?”. I can't believe that they came up with this, truely another innovation!
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:20 am
ATM Machine? Fail. What do you think the M stands for? Unless this stands for Ass to Mouth Machine. As in that girl was an ATM machine man! Or if they are talking about the machines that make ATMs.