Book Vending Machine?

[Windy*]

Brought to my attention by an LJ friend:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/f...ion=2006121409

"The machine can print, align, mill, glue and bind two books simultaneously in less than seven minutes, including full-color laminated covers. It prints in any language and will even accommodate right-to-left texts by putting the spine on the right."

Pretty cool idea, in my opinion. Choose the book you want and it'll print it in 7 minutes or less. Granted the 550-page cap provides some limitations (or a lot, if you're into long reads), but they're planning to work on that.

Personally I'd like to see this.

[Kelly]

I love books and buying from a vending machine is always fun, =P

[Sirius]

I would SO buy a book from a vending machine, if only just to say that I did. It looks really coold though. And the book you want would always be in stock, ne?

[Icypopcorn]

O:
That is so awesome.
They need to have those in stores like RIGHT NOW.
Only problem is you wouldn't be able to preview the book you want to buy. And you also then can't be cheap and sit in the bookstore and read books X:

[StarvingWriter]

Wow!
That would be so cool! Could you imagine those things out on the streets? You could walk along and stop and say, "I feel like getting a soda and book!" How fun would that be?

[Azure]

That's very cool, especially for users with a niche market. Though I wonder how useful it will be, surely you have to limit what's available?

[Shintarou Inuzuka]

That looks great; hopefully those will catch on. It might even get people to read more since books will now be more convenient, booksellers and readers will never have to worry about being sold out of a certain title (it would probably cut down on fights over the latest Harry Potter book or whatever's gonna be the next big book craze after that) or not having it in the customer's desired language, and people who want a certain book can get their hands on one as easily as they can get their hands on a soda. Sure, 7 minutes might turn away the really impatient ones, but let's face it -- if they're too impatient to wait 7 whole minutes for a book (less time than most restaurants take to cook people's food, not couting fast food places), chances are they're too impatient to read anyway.