A Factory on Every Desk?
dan tynan on Feb 09 2008 at 2:32 pm | Filed under: Future Tech, PC World
(A version of this story originally appeared in the March 08 issue of PC World magazine.)
One day you may order a new coffee pot or clock radio from Amazon and never have to wait for Fed Ex or UPS. Instead, you’ll download and build it using a printer-sized factory on your desktop.
This scenario is closer than it sounds. Three-dimensional ink jet printers that build physical objects layer by layer already produce prototypes for the automobile, aerospace, and medical industries. German chemical giant BASF is developing electronically active inks that will allow ordinary printers to spit out circuit boards on paper or plastic. For $2400, you can buy a desktop fabricator kit from Fab@home and build objects out of acrylic. The ultimate goal: to produce working units using multiple materials.
According to the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN), personal nanofactories will appear by the year 2020 if not before. And they’ll have a huge impact on our day-to-day lives, says Jamais Cascio, founder of technology consultancy Open the Future and director of impacts analysis for CRN. “If it becomes cheaper and more efficient to have something printed out locally instead of made in China, it will have a big effect on things like trade balances, international labor, and the nature of our national economy,” he says.
