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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: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday January 08 2016, @05:56PM
The plastic housing on a router is "Electronic Equipment," and the tips for pipettes are "Medical Equipment." It's easy to play with categories.
You're not under the misapprehension that 3-D printing is only for plastics, are you? I said "plastics" because it's what most people who don't follow 3-D printing think of, but many things have been printed in other materials already. 4 years ago I saw Fab@Home print objects variously in cheese, chocolate, and concrete, among other things at the Maker Faire in NYC, and other people have done non-trivial things like printing livers. So, no, don't know that anybody has printed a microprocessor yet, but they have printed jet engine parts and jaws out of titanium. Does that meet your bar for "things we won't have to buy from China anymore"?
So if 3-D printing ramped up fast enough, far enough, it would hit an economy that relies on manufacturing hard, especially if a significant portion of that manufacturing is not for sophisticated objects, as China's currently is. When everything you buy at Walmart starts having, "Made in the Phillippines" or "Made in Zimbabwe" labels on it, then you'll know that that sort of activity has moved one, but if you run to the store right now and start checking labels most of it's still going to say "Made in China" on it. Q.E.D.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday January 08 2016, @06:29PM
Most of my cheap electronic shit is from China. I fail to see how being able to cheaply 3D-print casings in non-China is going to decrease the number of crappy digital thermometers, or LED dimmer switches, or phone chargers that come out of China; and all those things will still be housed in chinese plastic, because injection molding will always be cheaper than 3D-printing. So I see no impact at all on china from such availability.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday January 08 2016, @10:54PM
I have lots of old electronics. I'm sure within them is more than sufficient material (plastic, silicon, etc) to recycle into a new device. If I could do that, why would I buy anything from China (or anywhere else for that matter)? I could throw that old zipdisk drive and about half a dozen old smartphones into a hopper, let it chew through and sort that, and re-extrude it as feedstock, and run that through a 3-D printer to produce whatever new object I give it the CAD file for.
Obviously it is not currently possible to automatically sort so many disparate materials, but it is possible to do that with single materials like PLA. Maybe you don't see the value in that, but I sure do. Instead of having closets and basements full of old boards I might cannibalize parts from for later projects, I could chuck them all into the hopper to print out whatever I want on demand. When my 5-yr old drops a plate, I wouldn't have to run out to Crate&Barrel to get another one, but instead could throw the pieces into the hopper and print out a new plate, no trip to the store, no expenditure necessary. That sums up to lost sale for $COUNTRY.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday January 08 2016, @11:24PM
If you think the mere presence of a material locally will make all stuff made locally from that material cheaper than stuff imported, then you know nothing about economics. In particular, you seem to think that time is free.
However, please continue bringing down the Chinese economy by fixing up your own plates, every little helps.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves