who needs barnes and noble?

Everyone should check out this story, about a (possible) 1000-page-per-minute printer.

"...we also anticipate brand-new, pioneering applications. One example is in-store book printing – where the book is printed instantly for the customer. This could enable small bookshops or even airport kiosks to carry a huge variety of books. There's also personalization – newspapers or journals printed with a customer's name, favorite topics, and suitable advertisements,” Moshe Einat told PhysOrg.com.

Wow! Okay, that's pretty cool--no more waiting weeks for books to be shipped or driving to every bookstore in the city in order to find a particular book (or being forced to read James Patterson when you forget to bring a book for the plane).

I wonder how far this could go, though. They mention small bookshops and kiosks, but what happens when publishers (for example) realize that it's cheaper to publish this way, instead of risking a lot of money on a substantial print run? If every book became print-on-demand. That would be a democratizing technology for sure--after all, if publishing a book incurs only a small financial risk, why not publish everything that's half-good?

What would this bookstore look like, anyway? Would they have one copy of each of, say, the few hundred (or thousand?) most popular books? Virtual browsing stations? Would you order the book from a website and then go pick it up at a mall kiosk?

Crazy.