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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: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday January 08 2016, @02:06PM
I'm really quite surprised by this sentiment in this discussion. It gives me flashbacks to the early 80's, when I and my geek friends were working on the early desktop computers and all our classmates kept telling us how stupid computers were. We were composing documents on Bank Street Writer, and they would say "Pffft, if I wanted to write a paper I'd use a typewriter. Duh!" And we'd say, "Yes, but this one you can come back and change later if you don't like it; plus, you can give copies out to as many people as you want." They'd say, "What do you think White-Out is for? And if you want copies, put it in the photocopier and mail them to people!" When we played our first real music on the Apple IIGS, we said, "Now you can have all the music you want right on your computer and you can give copies to all your friends..." and they'd reply, "Pfft, that quality sucks! I can play cassettes on my hi-fi at home and rock your ears off..."
In each case, they could only see where the tech was then and not imagine where it was going to go. Now we all know how the story with computers has turned out, and how they have and continue to transform the world, but strangely even people on SN cannot extend that same sort of forward-thinking to 3-D printing. It's astounding, honestly.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Friday January 08 2016, @04:12PM
I totally agree. The lack of imagination is pretty weird.
For some reason, people think that printing stuff is very expensive -- it isn't. Filament costs less than 3cents/gm and most useful items come in around 20 to 100 gms with the 100gm items being on the large size. People think the only use is making star wars figurines, but there are lots of static household items that are made in plastic that you can print up for 50 cents.
People think that because an injection molded piece is cheaper on a per/piece basis when building a million at once, that it's not worth printing. Except, when was the last time any enduser paid wholesale manufacturing scale prices for anything? The valid comparison is the full retail cost + (shipping or (gas+time in line))+tax. Printing is often much cheaper to the end consumer in the context that matters. I laid out an example where two things I printed cost me less than the sales tax would have totalled to buy the cheapest versions I could find: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=9989&cid=247947#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @06:53PM
I think a lot of people simply aren't accustomed to using their imaginative / predictive capabilities. Most like dealing in absolutes, once you start talking about COULDS and SHOULDS and WILL BES then they simply shut off as it isn't "real" and so not worth discussing. It is frustrating to say the least. 3D printing has already begun for glass and metals, so it is very believable that in 5-20 years we will have desktop versions that can use a plasma torch or something to melt the metal and shoot the metallic gas/liquid to build with. Structural integrity will probably not be up to snuff with machined versions built from solid blocks, but again who knows. Maybe the plasma torch will melt the current object enough to make a perfect bond, maybe it will require a vacuum, go go gadget inventor!
(Score: 2) by gringer on Friday January 08 2016, @07:21PM
I have this problem with DNA Sequencing. There are too many people trying to only do the stuff that has been done before on the new DNA sequencers.
Unfortunately, people are resistant to change. When a disruptive technology comes along, they'll try to keep as many things as possible the same as what they were before, which means that the real change takes much longer than it should.
Ask me about Sequencing DNA in front of Linus Torvalds [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @08:10PM
Think you are missing a bit of what people are saying.
Right now, *today*, 3d printing is a rather finiky picky thing to do. You need a decent rig to pull it off. Even then you can end up wasting a day and end up with a bum project.
The guys in the early 1980s were right then too. The computers of the time where *nothing* like the machines we have today. They were finiky and picky and a PITA. I spooled up my fair share of green line. At the time memory and visual display was a major limiting factor of what they could do.
When we played our first real music on the Apple IIGS, we said, "Now you can have all the music you want right on your computer and you can give copies to all your friends..."
They were right. At best you could do a few dozen songs and of arguably cheesy quality. They probably had 50x that in the box out in their car and it sounded amazing compared to it. Even better if they were rich and sprung for CDs. The mp3 of the mid 90s was where it came into its own. Even then it took awhile for that to catch on as the storage space tech was not there until the early 2000s.
At the quality level they have now the cost will have to go down even more. They are already semi cheap. But not quite there. The software is getting way better than it was say 3 years ago. But it will have to get even better.
Also do not confuse what some people are saying. They are saying 'for a one off I can get it just as cheap or cheaper somewhere else'. Cost is the motivating factor for them. Not quality or something interesting. Cost. Someone even with 1 semester of econ will tell you most people consider the cost of the machine as part of the cost of making something (not true but it is the way people see it). If it costs me 800 bucks to buy 1 small plastic part. I will buy the part instead. If I need 200 parts with each one doing something different then I may look into it. Most people are looking for 1 small part not 200 different ones.
Here is how you will know 3d printing is 'main stream'. You will go into something like lowes or home depot and they have a printer and they print some oddball part you are looking for instead of stocking it. At that point you will be better off cutting out the middle man.
Dont get me wrong. 3d printing is at the same place as computers in the early 1980s. Right now it shows promise. That is it.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Saturday January 09 2016, @10:59AM
All that most people are saying that 3-D printing is being over-hyped - with statements like "like something from a sci-fi movie" and "cut China off at the knees". Some people seem to think that with a downloaded file and a click of the mouse they would be able to turn round to their 3-D printer and see it spit out the next model iPod.
3-D printing is certainly another tool in the box, but just that for the forseeable future. Manufacturing is far more complex than just being able to turn out a casting (because that is what 3-D printing does, and somewhat poorly), a manufacturing sub-process that was perfected in other ways a long time ago, both for metal and plastic. We need fully manipulative robots to make anything more complex - oh, they already exist but generally designed for a single purpose like paint spraying and fitting car windscreens, and out of Joe Sixpack's price range for a long time to come even for a small model.