SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the printster-will-be-the-new-napster dept.
Remember Napster or Grokster? Both services allowed users to share computer files – usually digital music – that infringed the copyrights for those songs.
Now imagine that, instead of music, you could download a physical object. Sounds like something from a sci-fi movie – push a button and there's the item! But that scenario is already becoming a reality. With a 3D printer, someone can download a computer file, called a computer-aided design (CAD) file, that instructs the printer to make a physical, three-dimensional object.
Because CAD files are digital, they can be shared across the internet on file-sharing services, just like movies and music. Just as digital media challenged the copyright system with rampant copyright infringement, the patent system likely will encounter widespread infringement of patented inventions through 3D printing. The problem is, however, that the patent system is even more ill-equipped to deal with this situation than copyright law was, posing a challenge to a key component of our innovation system.
If 3-D printing at home happened fast enough it would cut China off at the knees.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ThePhilips on Friday January 08 2016, @09:11AM
If 3-D printing at home happened fast enough it would cut China off at the knees.
How a low series over-priced production of singular item (aka 3D printing) can possibly undercut industrial-scale mass-manufacturing (aka China's manufacturing sector)?
P.S. Otherwise, China's gov't is already trying to move the country's focus from manufacturing to service. Even if 3D printing mattered (it doesn't, Chinese can 3D print too) it would only help accelerate the change.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday January 08 2016, @01:56PM
It's convenience. You buy a six-pack of something manufactured in China at CostCo. One of them breaks. Now little Timmy doesn't have one. Do you sit in traffic to go back to CostCo, circle for 30 minutes to get a parking spot, and then battle the crowds to buy another six-pack, such that you'll have one complete set and 5 extras? Or would you rather be able to throw the broken one into a hopper and see it come back out of the printing end new? Because I could do that in the comfort of my own home.
And for some people the parsimony of it, of not incurring the carbon cost to manufacture it overseas and ship it all the way round the world, and not fill up landfills with broken or discarded items, has benefit.
For still others, being able to 3-D print exactly the thing you want, perhaps something you designed yourself, is attractive.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by ThePhilips on Friday January 08 2016, @02:37PM
Now little Timmy doesn't have one. Do you sit in traffic to go back to CostCo, circle for 30 minutes to get a parking spot, and then battle the crowds to buy another six-pack, such that you'll have one complete set and 5 extras?
No. I'm not sure about the current state of the 3D printing market, but often users can order the replacement parts via eBay from China. "In the comfort of [their] own home."
Or would you rather be able to throw the broken one into a hopper and see it come back out of the printing end new? Because I could do that in the comfort of my own home.
So little Timmy just went out and forked $$$$ on a 3D printer? just to make one replacement part? (Not sure what you mean by the "hopper", but what you say implies that you also have some sort of 3D scanner to make the model of the part. Cleaning-up the output of the 3D scanner into a usable model is also a non-trivial endeavor.)
The last I checked - ~2 years ago - ordering from 3D printing shop on average had cost more than ordering from China. (Friend was buying a part for his pump: 3D printing shop wanted 35 Euro for 1 piece, while the Chinese sold on eBay 6 pieces pack for 12 Euro.)
Then there is the problem of the availability. If eBay is empty and 3D print shop doesn't have the schematics (and broken part is unusable for scanning), little Timmy would have no other choice but to drive to the CostCo.
All said, the 3D printing is a good option to have. In my experience though, it just doesn't replace anything yet. Complements - yes. Replaces - no.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Friday January 08 2016, @05:37PM
Recyclebot [thingiverse.com]
Makerbot Digitizer [makerbot.com]
I bought my first computer, a Laser 128, in 1985 for $2000 in 1985 dollars. www.usinflationcalculator.com's calculator puts that at $4,411 in 2015 dollars. But most desktops today cost around $500 or less. Do you think that the price of 3-D printers and 3-D printing might come down, too?
Do you throw away your computer after composing one email? Probably not, right? I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess you probably re-use that same computer to do other things like compose spreadsheets (more than one!) and play games and maybe talk to people on the other side of the world via Skype. In the same fashion 3-D printers will probably be re-usable for more than one replacement part.
Then scan one of the 5 you have left, throw the remains of the broken one to re-extrude it as feedstock, and you're set.
Again, these objections are rather myopic. If you've been following 3-D printing at all the last 5 years, you'd know that people have been pushing the envelope hard in all kinds of directions, such as using metal, different materials, multi-headed printers, scaling up, scaling down, using biological material (for replacement organs), etc. Do a quick Google search, or, heck, search of Soylent's archives, for articles on things that have already been done with 3-D printing and then come back and pooh-pooh the field.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by ThePhilips on Friday January 08 2016, @08:05PM
Again, these objections are rather myopic. If you've been following 3-D printing at all the last 5 years, you'd know that people have been pushing the envelope hard in all kinds of directions, such as using metal, different materials, multi-headed printers, scaling up, scaling down, using biological material (for replacement organs), etc. Do a quick Google search, or, heck, search of Soylent's archives, for articles on things that have already been done with 3-D printing and then come back and pooh-pooh the field.
Let's do it the myopic way, then.
Oh, my. Do a quick search anywhere and check for the plummeting printing market. You know, there were times when we were transferring images and text from computer screen to paper. It was like a magic. Except that digitization of content is slowly but steadily kills it. Because nobody cares about printed shite, because nobody cares about stuff in the real world, because almost everybody is happy with whatever the smartphone screen is showing.
~ N.B. Have you missed that 2016 is proclaimed to be the year of VR? the cool tech which makes the 3D objects digital?? ~
Ditto 3D printing. It is a solution and it even has a problem. But 99% of people are not makers, they do not do repair themselves the stuff, they do not tweak the stuff they have, they do not invent stuff in the evenings. Instead they go to on-line shops to find and buy stuff, and send broken stuff to the service.
I did glimpsed at 3D printing for some time now. And like many others I have concluded that the hype is largely limited to the maker community, the educational institutions and the R&D labs. IOW, general population still doesn't give a. General population still refers to "professionals" to perform the repairs/etc. The 3D printing has negligible effect on anything outside the academia, R&D, and similar.
Heck, with the advent of the tablets we again have the people (this time young ones) who need dedicated lessons on how to use the computer mouse. We have a generation growing now, whose technical/computer expertise is facebook and point/swipe with the finger. And you preach 3D printing to them?? Good luck - because you need it.
P.S. Since I'm software developer, I can actually draw the parallels to a different phenomenon. Namely that for 25+ years now, at least once a year somebody tells me that soon, very soon software developers wouldn't be needed because new ground-breaking concepts and paradigm and even higher-level languages, which are just around the corner, would make programming accessible to literally everyone, and thus we professional software developers would be unemployed. Guess how much has changed in the 25 years. I still have a job. I still have to code C. And the thing is, it is not the concepts/paradigm/etc which have failed - it is the people. Most people don't give a darn about programming. They'd rather have me do it for them, than spend weeks learning basics just to take off the ground. So. And now you come and say that 3D printing is almost here, and manufacturing is soon finished and done, because the people can print anything.
(Score: 2) by melikamp on Friday January 08 2016, @05:58PM
There's gonna be an equilibrium. We already see some percentage of useful stuff being manufactured with 3d-printers, although for now it's just the early adopters. We can't really say they are wasting money, since they are getting exactly what they want for their money. And I believe this percentage will become a lot bigger very soon.
Thing is, sometimes we forget there is a whole range of possibilities, not just the two extremes when you either print everything in your bedroom or ship everything from a giant universal factory on the Moon. There's also a neighborhood convenience print shop. It's one block away, it houses several industrial 3d-printers, and you can just waltz in there with a memory stick and print whatever the fuck you want. Pretty tempting, if you ask me, and so probably extremely profitable for a wide range of goods.
I'd say the only real danger to this model and the savings it brings is the oppressive censorship practiced by the copyright and patent monopolists.