The Future of Book Publishing

I find the following interesting but not convincing. I think it is bringing the day to on-demand publishing closer, but the jerry-rigged demo machine doesn't convince me that this concept is ready for roll-out in all major cities. Instead it is a good proof-of-concept:



Here's the claim that this is ready-to-roll technology from an article in Guardian by Alison Flood:

It's not elegant and it's not sexy – it looks like a large photocopier – but the Espresso Book Machine is being billed as the biggest change for the literary world since Gutenberg invented the printing press more than 500 years ago and made the mass production of books possible. Launching today at Blackwell's Charing Cross Road branch in London, the machine prints and binds books on demand in five minutes, while customers wait.