Home manufacturing may well be the next technological revolution, changing our life as much as computers, mobile phones and the internet have. But the world may not be prepared when some of the consequences, such as printable weapons, arrive.

The promise of 3D printing technology was hailed by Barack Obama in his latest State of the Union speech in February.

“A once-shuttered warehouse is now a state-of-the art lab where new workers are mastering the 3D printing that has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything,” the US president said, pledging to make sure that this revolution happens in America first.

In every house in a decade?
3D printers are devices that use digital models of objects to produce their real copies, printing them layer by thin layer over minutes, hours or sometimes days. Every year the technology is being refined, allowing better materials and more detail in the items produced.

The technology is becoming cheaper too. MakerBot, a major producer of 3D printers and at the forefront of the expected revolution, is selling its latest Replicator 2 desktop printer at a relatively accessible US$2,200, roughly the equivalent of a desktop computer. And it is overflowed with orders.

“The demand is much greater than our supply right now. We are actually ramping up and expanding rapidly to meet that demand,” the company’s PR Director Jenifer Howard told RT.

Soon a new device is to give a considerable boost. In March, MakerBot announced a prototype of a 3D scanner, which would be able to digitalize a real-life object and make it into a printable file. If that proves successful, entry to 3D printing will become much easier, with little requirement to learn computer-assisted design to get what you want. The already big database of models is likely to explode.

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Posted by The NON-Conformist