More 3D Printer News 338
tallackn writes "The New Scientist website has an article that tells of a 3D gadget printer which will allow fully assembled electric and electronic gadgets to be printed in one go. 'The trick is to print layer upon layer of conducting and semiconducting polymers in such a way that the circuitry the device requires is built up as part of the bodywork.' When the technique is perfected, devices such as light bulbs, radios, remote controls, mobile phones and toys will be spat out as individual fully functional systems without expensive and labour-intensive production on an assembly line."
Great! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Great! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Great! (Score:4, Insightful)
As you probably understand, in this setup nothing will have to be done by us, people. In theory, that is. But one fact is: important things like a houses, food and transport (not the smallest part of the cost of most other things) will become very very cheap. And after that, I don't know.
Re:Great! (Score:2)
1. Software and media is easily copied, but did it become free? Could it someday become free? Possibly. We will go through years, of a battle much worse than RIAA could even dream of over rights to copy physical items.
2. Lets say number 1 gets worked out. And everything becomes easy to produce. And you can mine the minerals yourself. Land prices will go through the roof, literly. I don't even want to try and think about how expensive land will be. And of course all the rich will then be buying up all the lands so that they can mine it and sell it back to you, and rent you use of property on the land.
Re:Great! (Score:2)
Re:Great! (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure the cost of a system like this would make it impractical for home use, but it could replace assembly lines for many cheap items. When the costs drop, you may even see them in stores...instead of (over)stocking a couple hundred cheap universal remotes, Wal-Mart will just "print" them, or any number of other gadgets, on demand. And in the future, who knows? Advances in technology may make it practical to use "flexonics" or some derivative for creating more complex circuits. Perhaps one day we *will* be printing our own computer hardware...
DennyK
Horray!!! (Score:5, Funny)
err... ummm...
Re:Horray!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Indeed. That dot-matrix one was rough on the willy.
Cool!!! (Score:4, Funny)
Damn, I gotta join that Drummer cult too now.
Woohoo! Great sex for me!!
Re:Cool!!! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Cool!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Hum. This argument came up shortly after the invention of 'Spinning Jenny', when enraged workers destroyed the first industrial machines.
Fortunately, they were not very successful in stopping the industrial revolution, and 200 years later we live, relativly speaking, in extreme prosperity, and with similar or lower unemployment rates. This is because whenever old lines of work disappear, new ones seem to appear.
The key to a strong economy is _not_ to stop innovations, and to maximize the amount of labor needed for a given job. And as for labor's basic place in economics, it should be noted that in present day US, only 10% of the work force or so have industrial jobs.
Tor The economic impact of efficient production is not devastating; quite the opposite.
Re:Cool!!! (Score:2)
Re: Service Economy = Servitude = Slavery (Score:5, Interesting)
And 20% are paper pushers working in the white color bureucratic world office world, 30% are government workers.. umm working, 10% work hard in the healthcare field making sure everyone can eat as much food as they could ever want. 20% work in the educational/social services establishment making sure everyone is as dumb as possible thus ensuring their own future employment. Everyone else works in some franchise service industry.
Oh, and lets not forget the 2% of Americans in PRISON.
The reality is we went from independent farmers in the United States (not in EUROPE however), to factory workers, to jobs.
Jobs today don't actually contribute anything of value to society. What we have is a gigantic make work program in the aftermath of the industrial revolution. Keep your citizens in school for half their productive life, keep 'em busy in some pointless job, and then shove 'em in a retirement apartment complex for however long they live past 65.
The economic impact of efficient production is not devastating; quite the opposite.
This is certainly true. The reality is human ingenuity has made work unnecessary to accomplish anything of real value. The problem we have today is that in a society where we are raised from kindgergarten or earlier to follow orders and be part of a "team", people have to either lead or be led or they cause all sorts of trouble (in the eyes of our rulers). The reality is work is no longer necessary for the vast majority of our citizens and employment/unemployment has little to do with life as it is today.
I absolutely agree with you that the we should not stop innovation. HOWEVER technology and human ingenuity are making traditional life as humans have known for the past few millenia pointless. Just when technology is allowing for people to spend their lives truly living, we are further turning our people into mindless drones to serve a bureucratic system rather then letting them explore the infinite possibilities of existence on their own.
Now is the time to give people their lives back. The educational/social services system must be abolished. The industrial economy at least produced things of value, often questionalable. The service economy is nothing more than modern slavery, which the schools gleefully train us to accept. Servitude is for slaves, it is not the foundation of a society or an economy.
Re: Service Economy = Servitude = Slavery (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a mere ghost of what lies ahead. The future will be quite different from the past, as many of the curves have entered the steep part of the ascent (well, with an exponential curve that's a statement that's hard to quantify, I suppose I mean that they are starting to curve upwards when drawn on exponential paper).
This is not all good. But it's not all bad. What it is, is different. http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=
Re:Cool!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Virtually *nothing* we do nowadays would be recognised as "work" by the standards of 1800. As people are freed from one class of labour, we find another use for them. Some of it is pretty menial - burger flipping. Some of it is pretty complex - network administration. But if we free up people from one sort of labour, we will invent another sort with which we can usefully employ skills (new skills) to make our lives better - and pay the workers.
While I am relaxed about the long term solutions, there are transitional problems if things change to fast. If this new gadget were to come in overnight, the transitional problems would be appalling. But if it phases in slowly - as it will do, because initial implementations will be expensive, and the designs won't be transferred, we can easily soak up the change.
Mind you, it just increases the lead of the developed world against the poor countries. Doesn't hurt the poor countries, just widens the gap - and hence increases the resentment of the poor at the wealth of others.
Re:Cool!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if this will work: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I wonder if this will work: (Score:2, Funny)
Paradox Printer (Score:3, Funny)
Imagine... at one time you could have tea and no tea.
Expensive (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to mention that they will cost several times more than their so-called "labor-intensive" counterparts.
Re:Expensive (Score:2)
Re:Expensive (Score:2)
"Look, we have a new device that can make a remote control. Granted, your workers can do the same job for less money, but it's not so LABOR INTENSIVE!"
Do you think that would convince anybody?
Re:Expensive (Score:2)
Unfortunatly, that isn't that case. Corporations will go with what ever is cheapest. At the moment, employing poor people in 2rd and 3rd world contries seems to be the cheapest.
Unless you're planning on ridding the earth of capitalism or something, there will always be minimum wage.
Besides, for people over in the sweatshops, there are no other jobs that pay as well, that's how the coporations can pay them so little...Alot have nowhere else to go.
Re:Expensive (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, it'll still be cheaper to move manufacturing out of the U.S. You can't beat paying a Mexican or Chinese worker $1k-$5k/year for assembling electronics. This technology will probably be reserved for "high-end" stuff.
Re:Expensive (Score:3, Insightful)
Once all those manufacturing jobs are eliminated, it had better be cheaper, or no one will be left to buy it.
Re:Expensive (Score:3, Insightful)
Pampered first-world people whine about how awful and boring their cubicle jobs are, but the truth is that they're doing at least a marginal amount of cognition in these jobs and are not merely doing some repitive manual task. Our big brains are the one thing that we are long way from dupicating in our technology. It makes a hell of a lot more sense, common and economic, to utilize the abilities that humans have that are still unique rather than employing them in repetitive manual assembly lines.
Look around at the world we live in (in the devloped countries). For example, most of it isn't that great, but there's an emormous amount of all sorts of creative works being produced. In times past, less wealthy times, most of those people (as a percentage of the total population) would never even be given the opportunity. They'd not have the education, and there wouldn't be enough wealth around to pay for it. They're undoubtedly living more fully human lives, with more dignity, than they would have dragging a plow behind their bent backs for thirty years.
The US now has an overwhelmingly service economy, manufacturing is the smaller portion. Every time factories close down and the jobs move overseas, the lament is that our economy is being wrecked. But our economy is the wealthiest and most wealth-producing economy in the world because of this. We're shifting labor to doing things that we can do better than anyone else and comparative advantage creates wealth--both for us and for those to whom we ship the jobs we no longer want. They're climbing the ladder (some ways) behind us.
Furthermore, there may be technologies that we'll invent that will allow less-developed economies to jump right over the worst of the industrialization portion. Clean, simple and cheap manufacturing processes are a huge boon. Only people who aren't spenging their time sewing shirts can get educations and contribute to an economy where such advanced processes are invented. This technology may be one of them.
Finally, given the political will to do so, productivity gains can be diverted from investment into a socioeconomic safety-net. All advanced economies do this to some degree, the US less than most; but my point is that we already have enough wealth generated and a sufficient wealth-creating economy that we could ensure that everyone lives considerably above an absolute (not relative) poverty line. (That won't really work though in terms of personal happiness, as studies have shown that people experience wealth, and poverty, in relative terms.) The work week has been decreasing in Europe for years, and their ability to do this has everything to do with the productivity gains they've made as their economies have matured. The US could do this, too, except that our mindset is always to reinvest gains and to do as little as possible to put a drag on the economy. (Well, except for defense spending and enormous national debt.)
Re:Expensive (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Expensive (Score:2)
I expect just the opposite, that you'll find it on magazine covers and on advertisements.
More than ten years ago I saw some articles describing working, completely optical logical gates. Part of the article suggested that the time to build a full working computer with this technology would be much less than it had been for transistor logic. After all, with transistors the growth to IC and then microprocessors had to be done by hand. All of those masks were done manually and the sicence was developed slowly. Now (even 10+ years ago) we have done all that, we have the CAD software already, and all that was needed was to translate logic design to optical logic. We didn't have to go back to scratch and start over, we could use all the tools we had to build the new technology. So where are the optical computers?
I ask this here because I see (and saw when I first read about it) that this could be even more impressive than semiconductor inkjet technology. Imagine entire optical computers, complete with display, on a sheet of film. If this technology came to market it would make the semiconductor inkjet look primative.
Logic gates not a computer (Score:2)
Re:Logic gates not a computer (Score:5, Informative)
Connecting them together isn't really much of a problem, you just position the gates so they connect. We're talking about light beams; I think the article pointed out how you could even let the beams cross in the same plane, something you can't do with electrical circuits. Making the gates small enough may well have been the real issue, although the paranoid in me wonders if the technology didn't get developed but is being kept from us.
The incentive would certainly be there tough. The gates ran at the speed of light, and didn't generate heat. In theory an optical compter could run off room light or at worst a small lamp, could provide it's own optical input and output devices, and should be inexpensive to produce. If you want another economic incentive, imagine this: Software could be delivered on an optical medium that included it's own custom processor designed/optimized for that application. It would go in a stack of optical software that communicated with the storage and primary I/O devices over an optical network built into a predefined location on the media. The whole issue of pirating software changes when the software comes with it's own custom processor right on the media. Software designers can be confident that the hardware will support the application and there will not be other applications taking resources because they deliver it with software, they just need an (optical) network to get to a network printer and I/O devices (and for portable use the optical computer might contain it's own display and input device), or simply hook up to a thin tablet like device. I see economic incentive written all over this.
Nonsense (Score:2)
This printing-fab process is an attractive fantasy, and may be useful for prototyping, but modern production technologies are EXTEREMELY cost-effective and efficient, and will NOT be affected by this process one bit.
No offense, but it's quite clear that your experience in manufacturing is pretty limited.
Re:Expensive (Score:2)
Not for high end stuff, or for low end stuff, but for stuff for which transport and stocking costs are a high proportion of the price. Suppose you need a spare part for your low volume, imported, car. If your dealer wants to give good service, they have to hold thousands of such parts for years, selling them only occasionally - and will therefore charge accordingly. Alternatively, they may not stock it, so your car is off the road for several days while the part is expensively flown in. And after a while, the original manufacturer does a last-time build of the part, and if you need any after they have run out - tough, that car may have to be scrapped. With an "object printer", you can get a one-off done for you within minutes, without the wait.
Expect this to be used for high-premium customisation as well. Back to the car, suppose you want a custom light cluster (or "limited edition"). Draw it up on the CAD system, print it out - don't spend $20000 on tooling. And when you back into a wall five years later - print another, don't hunt for the tooling and then do a batch of a hundred, throwing away 90 because they don't sell (after occupying warehouse for ten years),
Re:Expensive (Score:2)
Have you any idea how much it costs to do ones-offs? Getting the mold for the plastic parts along would probably cost you over $10,000 (IIRC).
The only way things are as cheap as they are today is due to mass production. If you want to do a small run, it will cost you an insane amount of money. That's where this printer will pay off.
And how is it you know that it will always be expensive to produce it this way? Costs will decrease the more it's used, and as the technlogy improves. I thought that it was common knowledge that new technology can be more expensive at first.
Sometimes I really can't understand the attitude of some people on /.. Here is this really amazing technology...Printing real 3D electronic devices for f's sake. And all you can think up is some poor comment on about how expensive it will be? *sigh*
Excellent. (Score:5, Funny)
Awww crap, I'm all out of nipple ink!
Consider the significance... (Score:3, Interesting)
Then when neural nets become fast enough to allow self-learning - wow...
Re:Consider the significance... (Score:5, Funny)
how long before these 'printers' decide to enslave their human masters? soon we'll be herded into tiny rooms and be forced to be productive
oh wait..
Re:Consider the significance... (Score:3, Funny)
P1: Damn humans, take forever and sometimes your job never appears
P2: "PC Load Letter" -- what the hell does that mean?
Recursive? (Score:2, Interesting)
Hah, another RIAA nightmare (Score:2, Funny)
On the plus side I'd love to download a new product and print it out, wonder how much piracy there'd be: "pirated PS8, download and print yours today!"
-Matt
Re:Hah, another RIAA nightmare (Score:2, Funny)
Screw making copies of the music, with this we could make copies of the ARTISTS!!! Stuff like that would make the RIAA freak out!
-Jason
Re:Recursive? (Score:2)
Let us assume that the source printer is 1x2x3 (of whatever unit you want).
Further, the "print head" is 1x2, located on the side of the printer that's 2x3.
The printer could print a copy of itself by printing 1x2 cross-sections.
The printer would have to contain enough empty space so that the amount of material comprising it with empty "ink" (polymer) tanks is less than the amount of polymer it takes to fill the tanks, or you would have to refill the tanks while the printing is occuring.
Another solution is to have the printer use cartriges, and print those separately, or to make all of the polymers out of materials that are found in the atmosphere (oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, etc.), in which case, the printer would need no "ink" at all!
Who wants to bet? (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone want to bet against me?
Re:Who wants to bet? (Score:3, Insightful)
Nope. That'll be the business. First, there'll be people who design patterns to
This could make for an interesting business model. It probably won't be cheaper than going and buying the pieces assembled. However, they can charge a premium if somebody has to have a piece right now right away. Example: You run a factory. A machine breaks and needs a part replaced. You can't take it down for a week to wait for a piece to be manufactured and delivered. With one of these, you can print the more expensive piece as a placeholer until the real one is done. This has been done before.
I can't wait until these become consumer (or at least small business) level.
Not a "3D printer" (Score:5, Interesting)
If somebody could actually make that work, flat-panel displays would be made with it. Many people have tried. (Remember "e-ink"? Flexible displays? Same concept.) It's not a new idea; it's an old one that's hard to do. It was first suggested decades ago for solar cell manufacturing. It didn't work even for that, and solar cell fab is very forgiving; as long as most of the cells work and the duds don't short out the array, it's fine.
Now, if they'd announced "we have it working", that would be a story.
Re:Not a "3D printer" (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a different way of manufacturing stuff, and in a way closer to the nanotech promise of universal manipulators in its function and operations. (this part is not as important, but i thought i'd point it out - because if the print nozzles get small enough and resolution high enough - what is the difference between this and a univ.manipulator in practical terms?)
besides, non-electronic stuff can already be "printed."
there are a few impacts that I think needs to be considered:
ford completely changed "manufacturing" by inventing the assembly line. Now we are going back the other way of making things one at a time. this is interesting - from a economic perspective if anything:
there are always tradeoffs in the world (let's focus on manufacturing): let's take, for example, if you want to make a silicon chip for some application; you can either get a FPGA (field programmable gate array) from Altera / Xilinx / whoever, or go for a ASIC process with custom plates and stuff. for big runs ASIC is cheaper, for small runs FPGA is cheaper.
same thing with buring CDs. you want a few CDs of your stuff? you can burn them or send them to be stamped. under 1000 copies, don't even think about stamping.
exactly the same in manufacturing - even though assembly line is nice and efficient, there is the infrastructure cost and the start-up cost/delay (especially for big / complex stuff). this is problematic in several ways:
1) designing for an assembly line sucks because making models of what you are trying to make eventually is a completely different process. making models takes a lot of time, and they are not always 100% reprasentative / difficult to change, etc (why do you think so many uses computers to do industrial design / modelling?)
2) making changes to an assembly line (say, to correct error / bug) also suck, if in a rigid configuration (what, you mean my gate masks are wrong and I have to etch another one?).
3) small runs / cheap crap (toys, say) does not warrent a real "assembly line" and a humanized assembly line / having humans make them would be expensive. to solve this problem, many manufacture of cheap stuff offload them to, say, china - where stuff are made by hand in assembly, mostly. This is *still* relatively expensive, prone to humar error, cause bag working conditions, etc.
being able to "print out" a working model / product solves all three and fits neatly in a segment that desperatly needs, or would at least hugely benefit, from sucha technology.
I welcome it. It also may mean that instead of building lego robot command toys, my kids will be able to design his whatever gizmo in a computer and just "print it out."
but when an actual product is as easy to "copy" as a song on a CD - boy we will see some crazy changes in the future! This if anything convinces me of the not-so-distant singularity, and its proximity.
A significant drawback (Score:5, Insightful)
Thats the polite term for it. Waste is what it is. And given the current recycling rate, don't expect any relief. Even the author of the article refers to the "throwaway society."
Over-exposed schoolgirl victim of high-tech bullying [xnewswire.com]
Re:A significant drawback (Score:2)
There's no reason that these things couldn't be made to be very reliable. In fact, they could be even more reliable as there are no solder joints or tired assemblyline workers to worry about, and the parts can't move. The parts can be made with much less material than they would take if you had to ship and install them.
In the end, it's up to consumers to push for quality over price.
Re:A significant drawback (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A significant drawback (Score:2, Insightful)
A significant drawback / not really (Score:2)
The truth is, of couses, that a TV remote is never repaired. It's always discarded, and unless these printed devices were much more prone to failure it will be less wasteful to use and discard them than current devices. Early devices may not hold up well, but I expect before the technology is used to make TV remotes that problem will be resolved.
I saw one in action (Score:3, Funny)
Ill never forget that weird design, looked just like a dinner plate. I kid, I kid.
Missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Missing the point (Score:2)
Re:Missing the point (Score:2)
Long term, the power of this device is the ability to render both shipping and warehousing redundant.
Now, if it can recycle what it makes, that would really make it killer tech.
Sometimes, expense doesn't matter (Score:5, Interesting)
But it's a while before we see a device like this replicate itself. That is the turning point.
Bruce
Artificial Life? (Score:3, Insightful)
My biology is a little rusty, but this seems like a big step in the direction of being defined as alive:
from http://www.geog.ouc.bc.ca/physgeog/contents/9a.htm l [ouc.bc.ca]
If a device like this does come to the point where it can replicate itself, then it would seem to satisfy points 1, 2, 3, and 5 IMHO.Who is going to play mad-scientist and program in 4, 6, and 7? Would such a device be "alive"? The lines will blur...
Just some rampant speculation...cheers. :-)
Open source gadgets? (Score:3, Insightful)
What would be cool is the open source community eventually embracing it. Imagine scenarios like this:
Hm, can't find a friggin flashlight when I need one. Guess I'd better print one out...
Can't afford the one from maglite.com, cool as it is... What to do?
Ah! Of course! Download the open source flashlight from opengadgets.com and print it out.
Re:Open source gadgets? (Score:2)
Why? Every industrial product already exists in a CAD file. The process of converting it into a 3D representation is no more complex than your printer converting PostScript to a printed page. The hard part is the actual printing in 3D.
What I really want... (Score:2, Funny)
Hmmm. Anyone want to trade plans for a railgun? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hmmm. Anyone want to trade plans for a railgun? (Score:2)
Open source hardware is sorta here already. Check it [opencores.org] out. You have to supply your own FPGAs and the equipment to deal with them but Open Source hardware design is here now.
star trek? (Score:2, Interesting)
give away the razor, sell the blades... (Score:2)
One Word... (Score:2, Insightful)
yup, thats right. (Score:2)
This is cool, but not a big deal (Score:2, Insightful)
John Wayne Bobbit... (Score:2, Funny)
What would be really cool: 3D chips (Score:2)
A Von Neumann printer? (Score:2)
Thank Bucky... (Score:5, Interesting)
This one is for you, R.B. Thanks!
Expensive, but some uses... (Score:3, Insightful)
However it could be extremely useful for fabricating spare parts where it would be time-cosuming/costly to get them (on a battle field, in space etc.)
I have a feeling that... (Score:2)
Interesting (Score:4, Funny)
The pen can now print a gatlin gun!
Yay! Replicators! (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone wants a Replicator. The things we see on Trek, in Science Fiction, resonate with us so deeply because it's all stuff we really, really want. That's the best purpose of SF, to show you a nice shiny concept and have you go "Yeah. I'd love one of those." and then (for some people) spend surprisingly large amounts of time trying to make it happen.
Go back through history. We've always wanted Magic in our lives, and any technology sufficiently advanced...
Matter Replicators are coming. The technology began when we started carving things from wood, and will reach it's zenith when we finally get true nanotech in maybe a century. But there are many milestones along the way.
One we've been living with for a decade now is the Laser Printer, which is essentially a personal Replicator for books. This is an improvement on the old Gutenberg press, which was the industrial equivalent. Never forget that... the modern laser printer would effectively BE magic to Gutenberg. One look and he'd probably break down and cry with awe and joy.
Of course, then he'd get very angry at the entire copyright situation we've put ourselves in. He'd marvel at our stupidity, inventing a machine that can churn out books faster than you can read them, and then Not Allowing ourselves to use it.
Most of us now own a device that can, in minutes, 'burn' a data storage media capable of holding more information than exists in the human genome. How cool is that? What we did for books, we also did for audio and video media. And then the same copyright issues closed in to hold the technology back.
Again, CD burners started as multi-thousand dollar devices that only companies could afford. Microwave ovens followed a similar course into our homes. (though being devices that only convert food from cold to hot, they strain the replicator analogy a little)
We are slowly surrounding ourselves with specific-purpose replicators, while trying to create all-purpose ones.
It seems fairly obvious to me that these multi-thousand dollar 3D printers used by industry will eventually drop in price, and soon enter the home, to be played with by hobbyists around the world. And the moment that happens, be prepared for some rather large changes.
First, expect to see the whole Intellectual Property issue hit another level. Controlling the reproduction of physical objects is what the Patent system is best at, remember? Imagine a world where your personal replicator will only produce licenced objects after the appropriate payment has gone back to a commercial entity. There are a lot of powerful people who want that to happen.
Then consider the other side, some guy in Guatemala who designs a series of 'patterns' that, if you print them in your 3D printer and assemble the parts, makes another 3D printer. An 'open' printer. When that happens, a wave of change will sweep across the world like nothing we've ever seen.
The first 'industrial revolution' created factories and warehouses and supply chains. The second one (coming soon to a theatre near you) will mostly tear it all back down.
Replicators will change the way we percieve physical 'products' in a way we can't predict right now. Will we start keeping most of our 'things' in data storage, printing them out (and then recycling the materials) at need, so our homes are nice and empty? Will we become pack rats, filling our rooms with pointless crap? Probably both.
Any new view which sees physical products as transient and temporary will be another blow to capitalism, (and materialism, for that matter) which is only kept honest by the transfer of 'real' commodities. What happens to the law of supply and demand when scarcity suddenly cannot possibly exist for a large class of consumer products? We may be facing the end of capitalism as we know it. The only way to keep it in it's current form is to engineer scarcity back into the model, which as the copyright wars show us, is only possible through totalitarian control of each consumer's tools. I don't think we want to go there.
Yes, 3D printers require processed raw materials (the polymer inks) which initally will have supply/demand issues, but those will dissapear quickly as millions of individuals prototype and play with recycling machines, or automated chemistry sets. In the medium term we might even co-opt nature's replicators and make a few strains of yeast which excrete the relevant polymers (or precursors) after eating recycled waste. There are many paths.
None of this can happen without computers and the Internet, and without the intellectual freedom to use them.
The great thing is, it seems to be pretty much inevitable. Whatever the precise mix of technologies turns out to be, these devices are going to forever change our relationship with the physical world.
I'm ready. Are you?
But can it assemble... (Score:2)
.
Re:But can it assemble... (Score:2)
Virus Bait (Score:5, Insightful)
So, any ideas on what will be the first virus payload that targets such a device? I can just imagine the mayhem that would occur if such a thing were to become a common appliance.
Ooh, I know, print an autonomous spycam that networks with any other such camera or wireless network in transmission range. Easy enough to build, give it some insect-level AI and you might never know you were infected.
The ability to deply a wide variety of physical objects into my home at will, for anyone able to break into my computer. Hmm, I think I'll be leaving mine off, unplugged and locked up in the basement unless I really, really need it.
Re:Virus Bait (Score:2)
Cool, new newsgroup request: (Score:2)
3D Scanning and Object replication (Score:3, Insightful)
Imagine a 3D scanner, capable of determining how an object is made (let's say, a Rolex watch). The technology presumably is feasible, what with Xrays, NMR etc. Given sufficiently advanced technology, this scanning could go to the molecular level.
After having scanned it, and stored the 40Tb "image" on my hard disk, with a *more advanced* 3D printer, I could theoretically churn out exact replicas.
Are we going to see the crackdown we're currently seeing with Digital Media extended to solid objects?
And what would happen if you scanned a live animal? Would the copy you create live?
Oh my brain hurts with the implications
* * *
Would make open source hardware practical (Score:2)
Not quite a replicator, but good enough to start with..
Here's how it will work out... (Score:2)
The printers will be sold cheaply but the printing "ink" will be sold at a premium. Oh yes, they will be "winprinters" and have windoze-only drivers.
DRM built in will prevent you from fabbing virtually anything that could be considered to have been patented, trademarked, or copywrited.
Re:Oooohhh Oooohh I have a printer! (Score:3, Funny)
Yes!
Unfortunately it only prints Transmetas.
Re:Oooohhh Oooohh I have a printer! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oooohhh Oooohh I have a printer! (Score:3, Funny)
Until it's Barbie Doll House sized?
Re:Oooohhh Oooohh I have a printer! (Score:3, Funny)
Or better still.... print a more sophisticated printer on my existing printer. Repeat.
Of course, by the tenth generation or so they've gotten so complicated you can't figure out why it keeps spitting dust out at you. And by the twentieth generation, the printers print more sophisticated printers on you.
Re:Oooohhh Oooohh I have a printer! (Score:2, Funny)
Only if you're in Soviet Russia.
Re:Oooohhh Oooohh I have a printer! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Oooohhh Oooohh I have a printer! (Score:2, Insightful)
Soon hardware will be protected by copyrights not patents. The patent office will become a museum.
Instead of waiting around 20 years for a patent to expire expect to wait "n + 99" years for the copyright to expire.
Printer first boot sequence (Score:2, Funny)
And some spare cartridges...
Re:Yeah, we need this for lightbulbs... (Score:5, Insightful)
Way to miss the point.
Am I correct in understanding that lightbulbs contain a vacuum or at least a different air pressure? If so, can I take that comment to mean that they can create a vacuum inside the printed lightbulb, or is that a seperate process?
Not really that big of deal, but that's damn cool if they can.
Re: No, YOU missed the point (Score:2, Informative)
The lightbulbs they're referring to are more like LED's, the kind that light up when you press a button on the TV remote you just printed out.
Re: No, YOU missed the point (Score:2)
If only Google cached 1% of the articles Slashdot links to.
Re: No, YOU missed the point (Score:3, Insightful)
An LED wouldn't be a lightbulb, now would it? Since it's not a bulb at all? So does it really matter if the story isn't read? If it calls it a lightbulb, it's incorrect. Which means the original poster who pointed out the issue of the vacuum issue still has a perfectly valid question. If the thing can print out a lightbulb, as the slashdot blurb says, can it create the vacuum too? If it's not a lightbulb, then either the original story, or the slashdot blurb, or both are incorrect.
Not to nitpick, mind you.
Re:Yeah, we need this for lightbulbs... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, we need this for lightbulbs... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yeah, we need this for lightbulbs... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Yeah, we need this for lightbulbs... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:bleh (Score:2)
Heh I suppose getting married is out of the question?
(This joke is costing me roses. I better get modded up.)
Re:First thing I want to print... (Score:2)