The Book Machine may be the kind of disruptive technology that does to the publishing and book retail business, what the Internet is doing to music.

‘The BookMachine is an automated device that can produce a soft-cover, perfect bound, standard-format book on customer demand within three to five minutes…the customer uses a touch screen display to select a book by author, title, subject matter or publisher…The textual content of the book is sent via satellite to the…BookMachine…The customer can now inspect..the contents of the book and “open” a few pages to see if it is the right book. Using a credit card, the customer places an order…The BookMachine’s production unit has two high-speed laser printers that print text and a full-color printer for the paperback covers. Covers and pages are then bound together, with the entire process taking five minutes.’