The History of the Espresso Book Machine

Have you ever been frustrated when trying to buy a book only to find out that it was out of stock, out of print, or delayed in delivery? The frustrations surrounding book buying can seem endless at times. Sometimes even buying a book online becomes a hassle with shipping fees and the delivery wait, which can take longer if bad weather gets involved. However there are machines that can print you a book in an instant, eliminating the wait and hassle. One of those machines is the Espresso Book Machine.

The Espresso Book Machine was described in a 2010 OnDemandBooks.com article in the following words:

A Fully integrated patented book making machine which can automatically print, bind and trim on demand at point of sale perfect bound bookstore-quality paperback books with a full-color cover indistinguishable from their factory made versions.



Photo from dailymail.co.uk



The 'On Demand Books' website compared the Espresso Book Machine to Gutenberg's printing press invention, saying that "the Espresso Book Machine will do for the world what Gutenberg's press invention did for Europe in the 15th century."  

The Espresso Book Machine Channel on Lightingsource.com said that the Espresso Book Machine is the latest pioneering distribution in publisher-to-market pathways that will change the way books are consumed.

Aspiring novelists can even bring in a CD of their work and print out a bound copy of their own novel. (Read more about this concept at : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1173013/A-novel-idea-The-machine-print-book-minutes.html#ixzz1GM8QzlD9)

But how did this unique machine come about?

Well, according to the On Demand Books website, it all started back in 1999 when a man by the name of Jason Epstein held a series of lectures at the New York Public Library about a vision for a new generation of pod technology, a fully automatic, low cost device that could be placed almost anywhere. Epstein was unaware that a prototype of a similar machine actually existed in the St. Louis workshop of an inventor named Jeff Marsh.

Then in 2003, Mr. Epstein and his partner Dane Neller founded the company called "On Demand Books" or ODB to develop Marsh's machine and integrate it into the digital world. A grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation helped provide the funding for ODB to develop, test and later build the first beta version of the machine. This first beta machine was installed in the World Bank InfoShop located in Washington, D.C. in April of 2006. There the machine printed thousands of World Bank publications over the years.

In September of 2006, ODB installed a second beta publishing machine at the Library of Alexandria, Egypt. This machine was made to printing books in Arabic.

The first actual Espresso Book Machine, Version 1.5, was introduced during the summer of 2007, on a trial run of ninety days at the New York Public Library. Since then, the machine has been installed in multiple locations across the globe, printing multitudes of books for customers.

(Watch the above Video from YouTube to learn more about how the Espresso Book machine Works)

The new version of the Espresso Book Machine, Version 2.2, is now available and is currently being placed in various locations across the world.

So that's a little background history on the Espresso Book Machine.

I found this all very interesting and am eager to find a machine near me to buy an out of print book that has been hard to find.

The goal is to eventually get digital files for all out of print and in print books so that you could literally buy ANY book from an Espresso Book Machine or similar book vending machine.

The question is...how will this affect not only the publishing industry, but also the bookstore industry, both online and in stores??

Electronics become more realistic: Silk-based flexible ereaders

Photo from: http://www.slashgear.com/

(This blog post has been edited from its original published version by the author)
 
I was interested to learn that Researchers at a Taiwan university recnetly claimed that they have figured out a way of using silk membranes to help create bendable or flexible electronic devices such as eReaders, LED displays and radio-frequency identificaton tools according to a March 3 article by PC World. 

Wouldn’t that be something, an electronic device that you could bend like you would a magazine or newspaper. I’d buy it just for the uniqueness of it, I mean seriously, how many computers or eReaders can you bend right now?

According to the March 3rd article from PC World : 

The technology turns liquid silk into membranes that work as insulators for flexible thin-film transistors, a component of bendable electronics. The membranes may even improve the speed and performance of a device's transistors.

This video from YouTube explains more about flexible electronics

But, as a journalism student I see this new invention of flexible ‘silk’ technology to be intriguing. Not only will it help keep the idea of holding a traditional newspaper somewhat alive, it will also add new possibilities for, not only writers, but designers as well. Designers would no longer have to stick to straight horizontal designs, but could add curves and other creative features to their publications.

I would rather have my publication be on a flexible electronic device or flexible eReader rather than a regular eReader, at least it would still be similar to the original thing and would have more possibilities. 

According to a March 4 article on SlashGear.com, the Taiwanese researchers have already started discussions with manufacturers to start the new silk based electronics market.

All this new technology is both amazing and mind boggling to me. I just can’t imagine using silk membranes to come up with flexible technological devices. Wow! That’s all I can say about that.

However, we may be waiting for sometime until we see flexible ‘silk’ technology on our local shelves as the Slash Gear article explained:

Although silk is among the more expensive fabrics, in comparison to flexible electronics components it’s far more affordable. The research team expects the silk cost to be around $0.03 per device, and since it’s a natural fiber the ecological impact is reduced as well. No word on which manufacturers are looking to use the new fabric technology, nor when we could expect to see rollable displays and other gadgets based on it.

This isn’t the first time that academic researchers in Taiwan have come up with big technological ideas. In fact, the article on PC World explained a face-recognition vending machine, one of the world’s fastest supercomputers, and a webcam-mounted laptop antenna that scans library documents are just some of the other big Taiwanese inventions. 

I know I will be eagerly awaiting the release of these new and intriguing devices as well as watching for more amazing Taiwan inventions. Until then I will be watching for more surprising technological inventions to change the way we consume the written word…