Literary fans love a good book signing. But absent the actual author, the next best thing might be an autograph from a mechanical arm in his or her own style.
That, at least, seems to be the premise of a stunt from European online bookseller Bol.com and DDB Brussels at the Antwerp Book Fair this month. To mimic the handwriting of eight popular authors, the agency worked with research and design lab Beyond to analyze their original penmanship, and build a machine to recreate it.