Campus kiosks to offer textbooks and movie downloads

You've probably never heard of Polar Frog Digital or the National Association of College Stores (NACS), but if you're a college student you'll soon see kiosks around campus bearing these two names. As it turns out, The Wired Campus says college bookstores around the country will begin installing kiosks that sell electronic textbooks and Hollywood blockbusters.

The first kiosks expected to appear in a handful of universities will initially sell and rent TV shows and movie downloads, but a spokesman for NACS says digital textbooks will be added by next summer. The kiosk will give students the option of downloading the content onto a DVD or USB drive, but if they don't want to bother with either, they can also purchase these downloads online or via mobile phone. Movies will be encoded to meet copy protection requirements of major Hollywood studios, and movie quality on rental DVDs will begin to degrade with time.

NYU, UCLA, San Diego State University, Bowling Green State University, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, University of Colorado, and the University of Illinois will be the first to get the kiosks, but Video Business says about 10-25 more will be installed in other campuses by spring. A typical kiosks will feature a 17-inch touchscreen, web-based ordering options, and a credit card reader to make it simple.

Start looking for these kiosks around campus in the near future.

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