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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: 4, Insightful) by deimtee on Friday January 08 2016, @12:27PM
Battery covers. That thin little slab of plastic designed to hold a couple of AAs or AAAs in place on some gadget or toy.
There must be half a dozen around this place that are either missing completely or held on with tape after the lugs stopped holding.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday January 09 2016, @02:40AM
Know what? This might make a great SN poll item!
What is your greatest need for a 3D printer?
Your suggestion is excellent. Throw in broken car tail lights, toy parts, custom lego parts, replacement clothing buttons, replace broken key-fob housings, etc.
Things that are just so impractical to mass produce and market, but would be very useful to the one person that needed that one weird item.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2016, @05:55AM
I was considering doing window slides for my first 3D printed project.
The building was 30 years old, and I was not sure replacements were available. (Actually asked maintenance about it: long-term plan was to replace the windows.)