Off Course-On Target

Laser, 3D Printer, and an Onion, OH MY!

Laser, 3D Printer, and an Onion, OH MY!

Feb 6, 2010

via blog.makerbot.com

How could I not post a quick note about this one!?  It is the 3D equivalent of time lapse photography.  IN this case a laser scans the growing onion plant every 24 hours and then the 3D printer creates a plastic model and places it on the conveyor to create a series of 3D "snapshots" of the growth of the plant.  What a great example of how new technology can enhance and promote creativity and learning.  What's not to like!?

See What if the Impossible Isn’t? in action

I believe it is now clear that the rate of most change is exponential and this certainly includes how technology is almost always on dual exponential curves of decreasing price and increasing performance.  We can therefore often see the future quite literally by looking towards the high end of the market where new products and technology are typically introduced.  Think for example of how much sooner we could have seen, admittedly when illuminated by the brilliance of hindsight, the coming of telephones, personal computers, mobile phones and most other innovations by looking at the first versions when they were introduced as very high priced products, with limited functionality and for limited markets. 

As the rate of change continues to increase exponentially we need to become better and better at not just seeing these as innovative technologies or products but to begin to imagine the impact, both positive and negative, on our lives, our behaviors, our learning and our society by getting better at imagining the impossible.  This is why I continue to wonder and ponder about WITII? “What if the impossible isn’t?”

It is in this light that I recommend you read the Singularity Hub blog for stories such as “Z Corp – The Lamborghini of 3D Color Printing and Scanning (Videos)”  Here is the lead in to the article:

While Z Corporation products are out of the price range for most individual users, they represent amazing technology that is commercially available to anyone. I doubt the average person even knows that 3D printing technology can produce color models in just hours. Likewise, 3D scanning an object is probably outside of the everyday citizen’s concerns. These products are still in the early generation paradigm: expensive and used almost exclusively in industry. But they won’t stay there. Technology gets cheaper and more democratic as it is improved, so we should look forward to a time when the kind of 3D printing and scanning we see in these videos would fit in anyone’s budget.

As this technology becomes more widespread and powerful, the ways we purchase and exchange goods are going to be different. When you shop online for a coffee mug, the vendor could just send you the CAD file, allowing you to print the mug rather than have it shipped. Free information (like open source design specs) will translate to free objects.

Even more than reading the article I would strongly encourage you to watch all the the videos embedded within (see but one example below) as they will truly open your eyes as to what is already possible and available to commercial business in the form of 3D printers and 3D scanners for use in the office and the field.  It will only be a matter of months before these levels of accuracy, color and materials are available at prices for the rest of us.  The question is will YOU be ready?  How will these types of capabilities affect you?  How will you take advantage of them?  How will these enablers help us all to find and release the promise within ourselves? 

Just keep asking and imagining “What if the impossible isn’t?”

Related articles by Zemanta

• Amazing Video of 3D Printer Art in Belgium (singularityhub.com)
• Bit and Atoms Blog - Erik de Bruijn (replicatorinc.com)
• MakerBot Math (replicatorinc.com)
• Shapeways now lets you print 3-D objects in color (venturebeat.com)

10 Profoundly Personal Future Innovations

Here’s a list of innovations that really caught my attention as this list takes a refreshingly human and personal look at the future and also manages to live up to this headline of being both profound and innovative.  Well worth your time to read though I’ll warn you in advance that there are lots of links and each one is worth following and using up even more of your valuable time and attention.

Notice how many of the innovations featured in this list are already happening and add to my What if the impossible isn’t? list.  As you reflect upon what you read here I think you will see how this adds to my conviction around The Snowflake Effect and that our future is a giant snowstorm of extreme mass customization for every person every day by making everything deeply personal and unique.  Read on and see what you think?

10 Profound Innovations Ahead

By Jeremy Hsu TechNewsDaily
29 January 2010 1:11 PM ET

Today's world looks increasingly like the future. Robots work factory assembly lines and fight alongside human warriors on the battlefield, while tiny computers assist in everything from driving cars to flying airplanes. Surgeons use the latest technological tools to accomplish incredible feats, and researchers push the frontiers of medicine with bioengineering. Science fiction stories about cloning and resurrecting extinct animals look increasingly like relevant cautionary tales.

In the Next Industrial Revolution Atoms Are the New Bits - Wired and WITII?

As you've been reading here in many of my previous posts, one of the best examples of the Snowflake Effect and my constant quest around the theme of What if the Impossible Isn't? (WITII?), is that of the extreme mass personalization of the manufacturing process.  This is essentially democratizing manufacturing and therefore most of our physical world of human designed and made "things".  This all ties in nicely or is part of the often called the "Internet of Things".

Of course this is pure delight for me as The Snowflake Effect hits manufacturing and represents a huge surge forward in the transformation from mass production to mass customization.

IMHO, the importance and the long term effects of this new industrial revolution will be no less than and likely more than that of the previous.  Consider that most of our society, our education systems, our design models, our assumptions and our way of life are indelibly permeated by a mass production orientation and the influences of the initial industrial revolution.  Imagine, as I do, this is changing and doing so exponentially rapidly.  The future is a much more “Do it Yourself” DIY model, based on groups of individuals, access, collaboration, crowdsourcing and centered around great ideas.  Brace yourself for the future, it is already here.

I can therefore heartily recommend that you spend the time to read this recent Wired article in its entirety, watch the video and click on some of the many links in the article to learn more and likely convince yourself just how real and how big this coming revolution is. I’m confident you’ll agree it is a good use of your time.

The video is below and below that I’ve pulled a few quotes out which caught my mind’s eye.

Atoms Are the New Bits

Added: January 25, 2010

In an age of open source, custom-fabricated, DIY product design, all you need to conquer the world - and to profit - is a brilliant idea. Welcome to the next Industrial Revolution.

Some other significant out takes from the Wired article include:

"Within minutes, you have a whole new physical object: a rip, mix, and burn of atoms."

“Transformative change happens when industries democratize, when they’re ripped from the sole domain of companies, governments, and other institutions and handed over to regular folks. The Internet democratized publishing, broadcasting, and communications, and the consequence was a massive increase in the range of both participation and participants in everything digital — the long tail of bits.”

“Now the same is happening to manufacturing — the long tail of things.”

“Three guys with laptops” used to describe a Web startup. Now it describes a hardware company, too.”

“Hardware is becoming much more like software,”

“As Cory Doctorow puts it in his new book, Makers, “The days of companies with names like ‘General Electric’ and ‘General Mills’ and ‘General Motors’ are over. The money on the table is like krill: a billion little entrepreneurial opportunities that can be discovered and exploited by smart, creative people.””

“For a lens into the new world of open-access factories in China, check out Alibaba .com, the largest aggregator of the country’s manufacturers, products, and capabilities. Just search on the site (in English), find some companies producing more or less what you’re looking to make, and then use instant messaging to ask them if they can manufacture what you want. Alibaba’s IM can translate between Chinese and English in real time, so each person can communicate using their native language. Typically, responses come in minutes: We can’t make that; we can make that and here’s how to order it; we already make something quite like that and here’s what it costs.”

Augmented Identity & Reality = Augmented Cognition

Below is a nice combination of postings from Ewan McIntosh on face recognition based Augmented Reality (AR) apps and some thoughts from David Truss on the applications and implications of this when used in education.

I'm delighted and encouraged by the questions and issues Ewan and David raise as I see the implementation of AR as one of the many examples of exponential rates of change.  I'd also suggest you see through the clumsy use of "screens" and displays such as those on cameras and phones and instead think of these disappearing through the use of eye glasses, contact lenses and implants such that the notion of a screen or a display goes away and everything is just sensory input, visual in this case, to our brains, and what is being augmented is our cognitive capabilities more so that "reality".

Augmented Identity

Augmented Reality (AR) has been around for a while. Fans of Monday Night Football have always had the television advantage of ’seeing’ the first down line conveniently added for their viewing pleasure. A more advanced version of augmented reality can be seen here, where you can see information about all the nearest subway locations in New York superimposed onto your iPhone’s camera view.

And now from Ewan McIntosh I’m introduced to this application of Augmented Reality, possible due to face recognition software.

Ewan says, “…In a schools context this could be seen as lethal.” And then he asks:

“But there are some amazing potential side effects – what would yours be?”

via pairadimes.davidtruss.com

Nanoscale: Robot Arm Places Atoms and Molecules With 100% Accuracy | h+ Magazine

Developments such as this are of interest and value for seeing trends & directions relative to WITII? (What if the impossible isn't?).  While I would  not pretend for a moment to understand any of the details of DNA level work, what I do see is how advances in nanotechnology are continuing at an every increasing pace and penetrating new levels of scale.  The quote below summed it up nicely for me:

"The advances in DNA nanotechnology keep coming, and many observers are wondering if this will be the path that leads us to the next Industrial Revolution. Only time — and many more experiments — will tell."

Nanoscale: Robot Arm Places Atoms and Molecules With 100% Accuracy

Written By: Michael Anissimov

Date Published: January 12, 2010

Until the mid-1990s, the term "nanotechnology" referred to the goal of creating vast arrays of nanoscale assemblers to fabricate useful human-scale products from scratch in an entirely automated process and with atomic precision. Since then, the word has come to mean anything from stain-resistant pants to branches of conventional chemistry — generally anything involving nanoscale objects. But the dream of a new Industrial Revolution based on nanoscale manufacturing has not died, as demonstrated most vividly by the work of NYU professor of chemistry Dr. Nadrian Seeman.

Schematics (a) and Atomic Force Micrographs (b) of the Origami Arrays and Capture Molecules. Panel i of (a) illustrates the origami array containing slots for the cassettes and a notch to enable recognition of orientation; the slots and notches are visible in the AFM in (b). Panels ii show the cassettes in place; the color coding in (a) used throughout the schematics is green for the PX state and violet for the JX2 state; the presence of the cassettes is evident in the AFM image in (b). Panels iii illustrate the PX-PX state which captures a triangle pointing towards the notch in the schematic (a) and in the AFM image (b). Panels iv illustrate the PX-JX2 state (a), containing a triangle that points away from the notch, which is evident in the AFM image (b). Panels v illustrate the JX2- PX state which captures a diamond-shaped molecule (a); its shape is visible in the AFM image (b). Panels vi show the linear molecule captured by the JX2-JX2 state, both schematically (a) and in the AFM image (b).

via hplusmagazine.com

Printers that Print Printers? WITII?

If you've been reading some of my posts over the past few months you know of my ongoing asking of the question What If The Impossible Isn't? or WITII? as I've been abreviating it.  This arose from my previous observation that we are living in a world of exponential change and the purpose of this theme of WITII? is to show that much, perhaps even most of what we assume to be impossible is actually now, or is about to be, possible.  And possible in this context is not so much that something has just been invented or accomplished in some research laboratory.  Possible in my the WITII? context is about products, services and capabilities that are available, affordable, accessible and usable for "the rest of us".

One of the more fun and significant examples of my ongoing quest for examples of "What if the impossible isn't?" (WITII?) and the Snowflake Effect of extreme mass personalization is that of 3D printers; machines that can create or "print" fully functional or "real" objects and assemblies.  3D printers are a good WITII? example in that they are not new, but they are beginning to reach a price point, availability and a functionality that can put them on your desktop on your budget and enable you to make things that you would want.  The application of this technology is also expanding dramatically as demonstrated by my previous post on the MIT Cornucopia project which looked at a 3D printer for food!

However as fun and exciting as these developments are, one of the most profound changes which 3D printers are ushering in is that of machines which can self replicate.  Simply put, you can buy a 3D printer which can "print" a copy of itself (some assembly required). 

Pause and think about that for a minute ...............  

Better yet, watch this video that will show you a recent example, the RepRap (short for Replicating Rapid-prototyper) self replicating 3D printer.  Well worth 8 minutes of your valuable time to see this in action and have Adrian Bowyer, the originator of the RepRap project explain it.

RepRap from Adrian Bowyer on Vimeo.

As per the video and the RepRap site:

“ This 3D printer builds the parts up in layers of plastic. This technology already exists, but the cheapest commercial machine would cost you about €30,000. And it isn't even designed so that it can make itself. So what the RepRap team are doing is to develop and to give away the designs for a much cheaper machine with the novel capability of being able to self-copy (material costs are about €350). 

Not counting nuts and bolts RepRap can make 50% of its parts; the other parts are designed to be cheaply available everywhere.That way it's accessible to small communities in the developing world as well as individuals in the developed world. Following the principles of the Free Software Movement we are distributing the RepRap machine at no cost to everyone under the GNU General Public Licence. So, if you have a RepRap machineyou can use it to make another and give that one to a friend.

Talk about exponential rates of change!  This not only affects the rate of change for making these kinds of machines, it equally changes things like business models, sharing of designs and actual parts and machines.

I don't know about you but that sure get's me excited and has my head reeling!  See what I mean about "What if the impossible isn't?", what was once just something you read about in science fiction novels and movies is now on your desktop! 

I'll let you think on it a bit more and be back to you in future posts with both more examples and implications.

Hearing the Future? The YouTube Piano | Click and Play!

via www.youtube.com

*  see also this earlier version using an image of a keyboard rather than video

What caught my eye (ear?) was not so much the on screen piano this provides but the clever use, or more correctly re-use and re-purposing of video and timelines.  This piano example by itself is a bit of a novelty and one which wears of soon.  However, start to imagine how you could use this for other applications? Think about a new level of interactivity that anyone can add to any of the increasing volume of video that is being posted and a new way of creating and re-using/re-purposing video content. Try using this on a touch enabled screen such as your iPhone or Android.

Perhaps it helps to think of this along the lines of "scanning" rather than needing to recreate from scratch, to almost instantly capture that which already exists and use this as the raw components to create whatever YOU have in mind. 

As the fidelity of audio and video continues to increase the gap between real/original and simulated/recorded lessens to the point of being indistinguishable.

For me, this is yet another example of how we are transforming from consumers to creators and to a society of "ProSumers" the likes of which McLuhan, Nevitt and the Tofflers so presciently described back in the 70's.  And of course I also see this as more examples of how we are also becoming a society of "Tearners" (Teacher/Learners)  

Give this video piano example a try and see if you start to hear the future as you play?

What if the notion of display goes away?

Samsung notebook with transparent OLED display

Samsung is showing off a notebook prototype with a 14 inch transparent OLED display. When the screen is off, it’s up to 40% transparent. And when it’s on, you can clearly see the display, but you can also see right through it

via www.liliputing.com

As usual, this is a bit hindered by putting something very new, transparent displays in this case, into a very old format such as the screen on a notebook, but think differently about this and you'll quickly start to see LOTS of applications.  As this transparent display technology becomes more common, imagine if:

• All displays were to have the option of being transparent; you want it you got it.  Whatever % of transparency you want.  
• this was used for the lenses into your eye glasses or sun glasses or contacts?
• this was used to create windows, windshields, doors, walls, floors
• this were implanted in a damaged eye

You get the idea.  Transparency adds augmented reality capabilities to any display so that anything we want can be layered on top of the "real stuff" we are seeing through the display.

Objects in this screen are closer than they appear!

Take it out far enough, my kind of timeframes, and I wonder and ponder things like:

• What if every surface is a "display surface"?  Either through the materials it is made of or what it is painted/covered with.
• What if we seldom see anything other than through a lens? (embedded or worn)
• What if the notion of a "display" goes away?  What if we just look and see?
• What if we think about surfaces and loose the distinction of 3D vs 2D?

Again, if we are not equally fascinated and frightened I don't think we are paying attention!  Ask more questions!  Ponder What If?

Full color 3D printing: Shapeways

 The Process of Full Color 3D printing

The video explains how the process of Full Color 3D printing  works:


Safety datasheet by our producers: Full Color
Information sheet on XLA Form Infusion

Expectation management

Full Color Sandstone available for new uploads only
We can currently print models your models in Full Color Sandstone and Sandstone. However we have made the material available for new uploads only. To prevent disappointment we won’t make Full Color Sandstone available for the existing models in our gallery. They don’t contain color information and the guidelines for 3D modeling for Full Color 3D printing differ from the guidelines for the other range of materials we have available. We will manually check the existing gallery for models that are suitable to print in Full Color Sandstone and Sandstone. When checked the material will become available in the material selection menu on the order detail page.

via www.shapeways.com

Adding full color 3D printing to the WITII "What If The Impossible Isn't?" list.  

The choice of materials and colors for 3D printing is still limited, but as usual these are following the typical exponential curves upward as prices move exponentially downward.

Shapeways has added "sandstone" to their options of materials and allows for greatly expanded choices of colors in any 3D models you have them print.  Worth watching the video and browsing their site.