A May 7 New York Times story by Saul Hansell entitled
Beam
It Down From the Web, Scotty describes "new 3-D printers that
transform three-dimensional plans online into solid objects", and
says that they "could be in homes soon", because the price of the
devices is predicted to "fall to $1,000 in four years".
(You may need to register at the Times site in order to read the
story. Please let me know if this turns out to be the case.)
I'm posting a link to this story partly for the
benefit of a good buddy of mine from Quaker Meeting, who has shown
interest in this "automated fabrication" technology before. It's
thanks to what I've learned from my friend that I know enough to carp
as follows: the story is insufficiently grounded in history, because
it doesn't directly mention Fab Lab, a visionary research program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology which may fairly be called the "grandaddy" of the commercial efforts described here. Another cavil is that I don't think the phrase "3-D printers" adequately captures the concept. I think it's clearer to call it a "fabricator".
What can the technology, as described by the Times story, make
today? One-piece shapes of hard plastic. By and large,
they look like parts, not like self-contained, complete
consumer items. That being the case, it's easier to imagine the
fabricator's having a place in a hardware store than in a typical
home.
There are exceptions: some serious hobbyists, for example, would have
a use for one.
And then there's a certain kind of
person who would buy one just for the gee-whiz value, not
caring if it were genuinely useful or not. This would be the
same sort of person who, upon hearing about the
"Internet
toaster" (the one which burns an image representing the weather forecast onto your bread), said, "I don't even like toast, and I want
one!"
2:54:35 PM 
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