Posted on 07/08/2015 12:04:55 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Self-repairing pipes. Printed organs. Bulletproof t-shirts. Seriously?
In April I was asked to speak at the annual TED conference in Vancouver (following Bill Gates…gulp) on the topic of 3D printing production and its implications. I have detailed my thoughts on why the shift to 3D printing production is not only likely but inevitable in articles one, two and three in this series for Forbes. Now, let’s take a step into a fascinating future, where daily life will be shaped by several powerful forces directly related to 3D printing production.
What it will be like to live in a 3D-printed world? Imagine the effect of these five trends:
1. Localized Production For Consumer And Industrial Goods: Biz Stone, Twitter’s co-founder, recently predicted that Nike could be a pure software company in ten years. If this happens, it will be thanks to 3D printing production. In the future, everything you know will be made closer to you. Let’s say one day at home you realize that one of the wheels on your dishwasher has broken. You simply look up the part on the Internet, print it out at home or at your neighborhood commercial 3D printer, and out comes the replacement part. Your daughter outgrows her 3D-printed custom shoes? Drop the old pair in the material recycler and print out a brand new pair, one size larger.
Producing our own consumer goods, as in the example above, will make it much more convenient, affordable, and efficient to satisfy our household needs and wants. But the economic effect of localized commercial production on industry will be even more dramatic. Around the world, digital 3D printing factories of various sizes and capacities will soon become connected in a global production network. Referred to as direct digital manufacturing, this capacity to manufacture components....
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Mr. smiths breathless articles remind me of the 50s and 60s Popular Science stories that promised a flying car in every garage by 1970. Color me highly skeptical.
Mr. smiths breathless articles remind me of the 50s and 60s Popular Science stories that promised a flying car in every garage by 1970. Color me highly skeptical.
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The difference between now and 1950’s and 60’s is that then the technology was changing but not accelerating whereas today the rate of technological change is accelerating.
What’s driving that is that computers continue to get smaller faster better—that is Moore’s law is still in effect.
Now unless the jump to quantum computers can be made in 10 years—Moore’s law will come to end—but again that’s 10 years from now.
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