Here is an invention that will change the future trajectory of product design and indeed products. No more need for prison labour for cheap production, no more need for costly redesigns, no more need for accurate and expensive supervision. You can sit at home, design a product and produce it to the nth degree of accuracy. This is the 3 D printer.
What can you do with a 3D printer. It seems plenty. And you can do it remotely. You may be sitting in remote Africa but need a crucial delicate part for your machine. If you have invested in a 3D printer, the design can be sent to you over the internet and voila in a few minutes you will have the part in your hands.
What can you do with a 3D printer. It seems plenty. And you can do it remotely. You may be sitting in remote Africa but need a crucial delicate part for your machine. If you have invested in a 3D printer, the design can be sent to you over the internet and voila in a few minutes you will have the part in your hands.
Designers can now use 3D printers to quickly create product models and prototypes from drawings, but they're increasingly being used to make final products as well. Among the items made with 3D printers are shoe designs, furniture, wax castings for making jewelry, tools, tripods, gift and novelty items, and toys. The automotive and aviation industries use 3D printers to make parts. Artists can create sculptures, and architects can fabricate models of their projects. Archaeologists can make a 3D scan of a fragile artifact and print out a copy of the object. Likewise, paleontologists could duplicate, say, a dinosaur skeleton for display.
Certain 3D printers can even be used in food preparation, to apply items in liquid or paste form such as cheese, icing, and chocolate. 
"Physicians can use 3D printing to make prosthetics, hearing aids, artificial teeth, and bone grafts, as well as replicate models of organs, tumors, and other internal bodily structures from CT scans in preparation for surgery. Also, 3D printers are being developed that can lay down layers of cells to create artificial organs (such as a kidney http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_printing_a_human_kidney.html) and blood vessels (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14946808) are already in the R&D phase. 3D printing can be used in forensics, for example to replicate a bullet lodged inside a victim (human or otherwise):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKhpa5Nt6Ck"
Printed electronics is a set of printing methods that enable electronic devices or circuitry to be printed on flexible material such as labels, fabrics, and cardboard, by application of electronic or optical inks. It provides very low-cost fabrication of low-performance devices. Printed electronics is beginning to be combined with 3D printing, allowing for the printing of layered circuitry or devices. A natural outgrowth of this potent combo is that someday you may be able to print out a future generation of gadgets from 3D plans rather than buying them.
3D printers could conceivably even match the Star Trek replicators, found in starship mess halls throughout the galaxy: These fictional food printers can fabricate most any food item on demand. If 3D printing lets doctors someday print a heart or kidney with internal structure, printing a steak or other foods should be a snap—though probably as not cost-effective.
In short this technology is on the cusp of the future. I understand that you can now buy one of these printers for your home for about $ 1000. Does this remind you of the begining of the laptop revolution?
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