And these aren't just replicas of guns, but actual firearms that work (loosely). Some 3D printed guns parts have split because of the pressure of firing several rounds, but Defense Distributed, an Austin, Texas-based project, plans on working out the kinks.
What will this mean for the future ... of weaponry? of selling, buying and keeping weapons? of 3D printers, which are revolutionizing the art fields?
While Defense Distributed is raising terrifying questions about the future use of 3D printers, Sculpteo is manufacturing a product less ominous and extremely useful. Sculpteo creates custom iPhone adapters for older iPod docks. TechCrunch, in the piece (linked above), brings up a good point. In a future where everyone has their own 3D printer, print-on-demand hardware puts hardware stores out of business and huge companies under pressure to make a whole new product instead of applying simple add-ons to the old product and selling it as something new.
While this example is intangible, think Apple and Samsung with their annoyingly small updates to make people buy new phones every year. Which leads me to believe eventually there will be a type of printer for this type electronic data in the future, so we can program there updates ourselves.
And while some might be cringing at the thought of all the companies shut down and jobs lost because of this innovation, I'll call your attention to the fact that this is just not true. Even though -- and we've seen this time and time again -- technology takes over a business formerly done by humans, does not mean that those humans never work again and die. No, those humans find other jobs, usually "better" jobs, and by that I mean jobs where the least amount of grueling physical work is applauded by the highest pay.
Blue-collar jobs are destroyed by technology, which leads people to white-collar jobs. (I want to mention I don't prefer one collar over the other.)
Other implementations are on the opposite end of the spectrum from frightening, including 3D printed food. Researchers in the Netherlands has grown animal cells to make lean muscle and Modern Meadow is working with bioprinting to replicating stem cells to create $300,000 hamburgers.
If that sounds disgusting, it's probably because it is. Researchers at Cornell University who have been working with 3D printed food as an alternative for astronauts, spoke with The Verge. They're having trouble getting people to actually eat the "almost, but not entirely, ordinary food."
But benefits to playing with your food do exist!
The Huffington Post also spoke with Cornell University scientists, who mentioned how much easier it could be to get children to eat their vegetables if broccoli was liquefied in a food processor, ran through the 3D printer for several minutes and sculpted into a furry zoo animals. Dr. Jeffrey Lipton then says, "Fun shapes don't just have to be for chicken nuggets!"
One problem, Dr. Lipton, chicken nuggets are fucking delicious. Chicken nuggets were a staple kid food before they were morphed into crowns and dinosaurs, not the other way around.
Give some credit to children, for God's sake. They still have taste buds, most likely more sensitive to shitty flavor than yours doctor. (Although I say that without having the slightest inkling of how old this doctor is.)
So to conclude, another absolutely absurd tech application: Toasters that burn highly-pixelated images as metaphors for the morning news into bread.
These are stencils and have absolutely nothing to do with the "News" Image Toaster above. Just watch the
video.
No comments:
Post a Comment