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from the it-can't-be-that-different-from-an-inkjet dept.
HP is on track to launch into the 3D printing market next year, but don't expect to be printing off your own plastic goodies anytime soon.
HP Inc boss-to-be Dion Weisler told an audience at the Canalys Channels Forum today that development of its 3d printer offering was progressing apace.
"We are broadly on track. We said we'd launch to market in 2016," he said.
When he says broadly on track, that's in line with the updated time scale the vendor laid out last year. But when Meg Whitman first admitted to HP's 3D ambitions in 2013, she predicted a 2014 launch, with the devices turning up in bureaus the public could access.
...
However, he was clear this was aimed "very clearly in the commercial space.""Don't expect us to play in the consumer space." Rather it would be targeting the professional prototyping and product space.
He also seemed to play down the 3D-printing market as whole, saying that while there was lots of hype, the technology had been around for a couple of decades.
A Kodak moment for HP?
(Score: 4, Informative) by hemocyanin on Sunday October 11 2015, @03:12AM
Of course I can imagine such doo-dads, see examples below from my real life. The "15 minutes" you'll note is a time I said would be necessary for wide adoption -- printers today do not print that fast, but the cost savings are available now. Filament averages about 2.5c per gram right at the current demand rate (you can pay more, you can pay less).
Example doo-dads:
I made a wall mount for my wireless repeaters that uses 15g of filament -- that's 37.5 cents, but it takes 68 minutes to print. Buying that would cost me $8: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010OD8HAW [amazon.com] (and I like mine better because it is totally invisible).
A sink strainer I printed weighs in at 20g (50 cents) (but takes 73 minutes to print). Buying that would cost me $5: http://www.amazon.com/Ribbit-Kitchen-Strainer-Basket-4-5-inch/dp/B00BA7KRCI/ [amazon.com]
Purchase Cost: $12 * 1.09 (tax) = $13.08
Printing Cost: $0.875 * 1.09 = $0.954
My total cost to print these things myself, is less than the amount I'd pay in sales tax if I bought them, and only about 1/13th the amount I'd spend in total.
And then there are the things you just can't buy, like a headlight for my wheelbarrow so when I go get wood in the pitch black dead of winter, I can see where I'm going. The paint is drying on that right now and by Monday, I'll have it installed. Yes, you can rig stuff up, and I did exactly that in the past, but that turns out to be expensive in its own ways (like spending $10 on velcro strips, bits of wood, and hardware to rig up a flashlight).
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday October 11 2015, @03:16AM
Wow, adding small numbers that add up to fewer fingers and toes than I have, is so hard sometimes.
The purchase cost would actually be higher: 5+8=13, plus tax (9%), totals $14.17