Even a small village in the middle of Africa with a 3D printer will have access to any good it can download. The world of the 'Star Trek' replicator is not far away.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
We're on the brink of the next industrial revolution. Instead of buying things, you can make them on a printer. When you have a 3D printer, you can iterate more - what used to take months, now takes hours.
It's definitely true that there are a lot of the devices we used on 'Star Trek,' that came out the imagination of the writers, and the creators that are actually in the world today.
I live in a small world of gouache and brush and pen and ink. I'd like to explore the world of multiples - etching and prints.
All these big corporations like Amazon, those places have great distribution arms, but they can't create content.
We got involved with the RepRap Project, a community focused on making 3-D printers that could make copies of themselves and help create a world without money. We started making prototypes.
Eventually, if you had a printer that is IPP compliant, that printer will have a Web address and anyone around the world who can get on the Internet can print to that URL.
The next episode of 3D printing will involve printing entirely new kinds of materials. Eventually we will print complete products - circuits, motors, and batteries already included. At that point, all bets are off.
I have always liked the idea of going to print because a big part of what we are about is to disseminate knowledge throughout the world and not just to people who have broadband.
We have always moved with this approach of sharing and educating people with what they can unlock with 3D printing.
The world got enamored with smartphones and tablets, but what's interesting is those devices don't do everything that needs to be done. Three-D printing, virtual-reality computing, robotics are all controlled by PCs.