Spiderbot 3D printers in spaaaaaace! HP's Meg Whitman drops a few hints about their plans for 3D printing. 3D printing graphene.
Wow! I imagine we will eventually reach a level where entire 3D printed assemblies will be manufactured. Design of these devices could get very compact, as elements for producibility (e.g., suitable for assembly by people) and extraneous parts (fasteners, etc.) would be eliminated. We may even be able to 3D print circuit boards inside assemblies. Being able to 3D print VLSI chips is a ways off, I'm sure, but one can imagine a combination 3D printer/component pick-and-place machine that builds up an assembly until it reaches the mounting plane of the circuit board, after which electronic components are placed and soldered/bonded, and, following that, the 3D printing resumes to finish the assembly.
Once they have 3D printed carbon nanotubes perfected (they're working on it), you'll have a machine which can print out a device like a smartphone, battery, case, screen, chips, and all, with just a handful of different materials. Next, add in that there are already shredding machines that will turn un-needed products back into feedstock for the next thing you need printed... Then the quesion becomes: "Is it more convenient to toss this in the shredder, or store it?" Also: "Is it more energy- and $$-efficient to print this, or go buy it?" A whole new world of ephemeralism awaits us...
3D Systems introduces two new 3D printers. The 4500 system is a full color plastic printer. The second is a multi-material printer. Pics and vids at both the links.
3D printer+$452=AR-15. What's Amazon think about 3D printers? Handheld 3D printer developed for medical use. 11 crazy things that have been 3D printed. Sadly, they don't give too many details, but it worth clicking through to see the 3D printed prosthetic leg.
Company aims to build 3D food printer for the home market. Low-cost 3D printed titanium autoparts in development. DRM for physical goods so you can't copy them. That'll turn out well, I'm sure.
The November 13th episode (scroll down) of the BBC podcast "Click" has interviews with several people involved with the 3D printing industry. One of them is planning on printing out a house in Amsterdam next year, and she said her eventual goal is to be able to print out a house, live in it for a few years, and then when you get bored of it, you "throw" it into a shredder and then use that to print out a new house. Surgeons train on 3D printed brain. This article made me realize that 3D printers can solve the zombie apocalypse problem nicely. You just set out 3D printers that print brains, and snipe away at your leisure. 3D printed game controller, complete with electronics! High speed plastic 3D printer set to sell for $500!
Indian startup (reportedly headed by a 15 year old high school drop out) to launch multi-material 3D printer. The estimated price for the unit works out to about $1600. Not bad, considering it can use 7 different materials and can print out an object almost as big as a soccer ball. 4chan has apparently discovered 3D printing. The twerking Einstein is oddly appealing, as is the Obama riding a raptor statue.
Taiwanese company to begin selling $500 3D printer next year. 3D printing pioneer 3D Systems buys a chunk of Xerox. 3D printed retinas developed!
Color vision is such a wonderful sense to have, it's great thinking that someday it might be available to everyone.
I wonder if it would be possible to build enhanced retinas (better than the original) enabling people to see in ultraviolet or infrared. There are certain animals that see in these wavelengths, so obviously biological rods/cones sensitive to them exist. Build up a retina with uv-sensitive cells in addition to the regular RGB cells.... The possibilities.
More DRM for 3D printers. That's a really limiting technology, I can think of a number of applications where the last thing you'd want would be voids and pockets inside the object. It won't be hard to defeat, either. Hackers had no trouble beating the DRM on Blu-Ray DVDs, and that was insanely complicated stuff, where they worried about nearly every possibility you could think of, to block people from getting so much as a frame grab from a disc. Tetrahertz scanners just got really cheap, BTW. Remember that 3D printed 1911? Its now for sale. Not mentioned in that piece is that they give you a tour of the facility, and you get to watch your gun being test fired. So, loss leading marketing ploy, or are they turning a hell of a profit on that thing? High speed 3D printer in development. (Notice that its printed them upside down!) And worried that kids won't know how to use 3D printers? Have no fear, someone's built one in Minecraft, so people can practice with a virtual one before they get a real one.
Togolese man builds 3D printer from scrap materials. 3D printer made from old CD-ROM drives makes Jello shots! 3D printed custom Lego figures (check out the Walter White). Artists and fashion designers are going nuts over 3D printers, it seems.
Walking 3D printer. Apple's taken out at least one 3D printing related patent. Ontario library gets a 3D printer. They call it "self-replicating" (even though it can't print out all the components), but it is an interesting design.
What do you get when you combine an industrial robot with a 3D printer? Anyone want a 3D printed yard (as in the kind you mow)? 3D printed liver (fava beans extra) to be used for drug research. 3D printed chocolate faces. (Yeah, that fad's going to fade quickly.) More dicks who think DRM is great for 3D printed objects. Imagine having lawyers for the 3D printing version of the RIAA show up at your door one day to tell you that 3D printed liver you're using is (falsely) in violation of patents held by Obnoxycorp, and if you don't cease using it immediately, they'll sue your ass off. (One hopes that you have a 3D printed gun, in addition to that liver, with which you can use to explain to those lawyers why you're not giving up your liver.)
It's more like 3D robot carving than printing but still very cool. http://www.viralnova.com/teacher-sculpts-wifes-grave/
With CES coming up, I expect we're going to be getting a lot of stories about 3D printing in the next week or so. Pirate3D printer to be shown at CES. It kinda looks like a juicer. Mitsubishi to begin selling a sophisticated metal 3D printer in the States. Patent fight! Patent fight! Oh, goody, its going to be Apple vs. Samsung all over again. 3D printing company buys toy company. Speaking of 3D printing and toys, Blokify allows kids using an iPhone app to design their own Lego-type toys and then have them printed out. Indian military thinktank calls on the government of India to invest in 3D printers.
McDonald's considering using 3D printers to make Happy Meal toys in stores, rather than having them made by slaves in China. No firm plans as of yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't have a pilot program going in a couple of years. This is big, or rather small. Very, very, small. $5K 3D printer with 100 nm resolution introduced. To put that into perspective, that's roughly the same resolution as they were using to make computer chips in 2004. That's the older stereolithography technology that that printer is using, which was developed in '85 or so. At that time bleeding edge chips were 386 which were made with 1.0 µm circuits. If I'm reading the numbers right, this form of 3D printing has taken a slightly faster leap than computer circuits have. A bit of a barebones looking 3D printer that has an 8"x8"x8" work envelope hits the market for $500. Xerox has come up with a silver based ink that can be used to print circuits. It doesn't say what kind of resolution they can print the circuits with, but it seems to hint that you might be able to get something as complicated as the kind of computer chips that were in early hand held games from the late '70s. British fighter tests 3D printed parts. Nothing fancy, but they seemed to be impressed with the low-price of the components. Kiwi university students build 3D printed robot. 3D Systems unveils yet another full color 3D printer. 3D printed prosthetics helping victims of the war in the Sudan. Daniel is now using his new prosthetics to make prosthetics for other amputees in the Sudan. 3D Systems introduces a 3D scanner for the iPad. BTW, that's only a sampling of the new 3D printers which have been announced. I didn't bother listing most of them, because there really wasn't enough to differentiate them from the others that are out there now. CES is going on for a couple more days, I think, so we could be seeing even more announcements.
A few more that I missed. "Mass production" software for 3D printers developed. I'm guessing somebody at the company is a fan of Pink Floyd. 3D Systems introduces a mouse for 3D design work. Coming to a dental office near you: 3D printed candy. 3D printing pen to hit retail shelves soon and new line of accessories announced.
100 nanometers is one ten-thousandth of a millimeter. With that kind of accuracy you could print a high-fidelity pirate copy of a vinyl record. Just an example that popped into my head.
Hershey's is going to be doing "something" with chocolate and 3D printers. The official press release is particularly unhelpful. It might be that they're looking to do custom creations in retail outlets, or it might be that they're thinking of having a home unit. The number of 3D printers being shown at CES this year increased from 5 to 20. Nike is using 3D printing to change how it designs shoes. Those filthy socialists in Canada are using 3D printed molds to help treat cancer patients. A high school in Fayetteville, NC is using 3D printing to get girls interested in things like engineering. There's going to be a 3D printer expo in Burbank at the end of the month. GE is planning on increasing its 3D printing capabilities. 3D printed exoskeletons developed to help kids with Muscular Dystrophy and other muscle wasting diseases. California looks at regulating 3D printed guns. University of Oregon using a 3D printer to make copies of fossils. (bolding mine) The da Vinci 3D printer took an "Editor's Choice" prize at CES. Interestingly enough, stock futures are down for 3D printing companies. ETA: Photoshop now supports 3D printing.
3D printing was used in the process of making the movie Pacific Rim. If you watch the video, you'll see that some of the models for a few of the effects shots were made in a 3D printer. AFAIK, this is the second or third film to do this. Iron Man 2 or 3 had props made in a 3D printer. I'm sure this trend is going to continue until CGI gets to the point where you can't distinguish between a physical prop and a generated image. And 3D printing has gone from "uncanny valley" territory straight to, "Holy shit! That's the creepiest goddamn thing I've ever seen! Kill it! Kill it with fire!" with 3D printed plastic fetuses. (Just an FYI, according to a friend of mine who works for a major hospital, children scanned with 4-D ultrasound have a statistically anomalous chance of being born left handed. Nobody knows why.) Another low-cost 3D printed prosthetic hand. Total cost to make the hand? $15. South Korean company claims to have a revolutionary design for 3D printers which will significantly lower the cost. Its a Kickstarter project, so who knows if it'll see the light of day. Homophobic pasta maker Barilla is looking at 3D printing technology. Another open-source 3D printer is introduced. Epson has decided to develop industrial 3D printers.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/20...o-sugar-diamonds-3-d-printers-hit-the-kitchen 3D printing food? Indeed there is a company doing this and their specialty is sugar cubes or what used to be cubes but now is being turned into all sorts of weird and interesting shapes for people to add to their coffee.
