Google Books is trying to make the information in books more available to everyone. Check out this fascinating book printer that is more like an ATM than a printer. Print an entire book in less than 4 minutes for under 1 cent per page.
This will certainly impact many industries and create many opportunities. From small rural libraries that can print a book that otherwise would not be available to rapid production of short runs of books for resale, the possibilities are fun to imagine. Obviously it's not like we can each have one of these in our home office but if there is something available at your local UPS store or Kinko's and alike then we can take the excuses of high printing cost off our list of reasons why to write a book. And there are just some things (although Amazon Kindle might argue with this) that we want to flip through in hard copy print. There are many things that we will still only see on screen but then we can selectively choose when to get a book to take along on a trip.
Some might argue that this will create more waste. As books become easier to produce that can also mean that they become more disposable and less value is placed on caring and maintaining your books. One can only hope that with the more awareness that we each are gaining everyday that we would choose wisely and not simply print a book for mere convenience, but that we would actually have a reason to go to press.
One of the other positive options that I thought of was the education opportunities in country's where books are not easily available as there are here. Kids can learn from actual books and not just one book that the teacher may have.
