Future: End of Manufacturing

Sounds cool. What industry is this?

You'll just have your neighbor print you a new one with his.

You know, the statements made in that video include some hype. They have *******NOT******* found a way to make cells connect with one another, and have NOT found a way to make them survive for any meaningful amount of time outside a special environment. When they do, the ENTIRE WORLD may hear about it in a couple days! IMAGINE! NO CUTS! NO GLASSES! NO TRANSPLANT problems! NO BROKEN BONES! ETC.... Ad nauseam! They have been working on that for DECADES! Perhaps even HUNDREDS of years! But I first heard about it when I was like FIVE! I am about 50 now! So the talk of artificial organs is STILL quite a ways off, though they have been claiming it was close for like 20 years or so.

And this is NOT the end of manufacturing. The best this could do really is make parts. Not only because of size and material, but also because of moving parts, etc...

And lets say it COULD do all this fancy stuff. It is STILL FAR from the replicators on star trek. The replicators created things at the atomic level with electricity. THIS machine is making things at the chemical or cellular level(if you believe the hype!) with materials that have chemicles or cells. Since there are conceivably BILLIONS of such things, THEY must be manufactured, etc... So manufacture is SECURE! HOW, for example, could this create a drug?

Don't forget one of rosannes jobs. She was a PART PULLER! Pulling parts from the excess created in forming them. YES, there are REALLY such jobs! Look at how its made or made in america sometime. There are often jobs they have a PERSON doing.

This machine is really nothing more than a CAT SCAN machine in reverse! In fact, you could call this a CAT PRINTER!

CAT stands for Computer Assisted Tomography.

A CAT SCAN machine uses different levels/frequencies of radiation to mad out the depths of cells at a given point, creating a picture of that layer. The computer then places the layers together to create a 3D image.

A CAT PRINTER decomposes a 3D image into a number of layers. The printer then prints the layers with appropriate materials at various points on that layer. It then does the next picture on the next layer, and ends up with a 3D object.

NOW, HERE is the CATCH! A CAT SCAN is not really accurate. You can't see color, have trouble determining chemical makeup, etc... Guesses are made. Likewise, this printer couldn't handle certain materials, etc... How do you handle glass as a liquid, or metal, for example? And what if you have to temper it? And CELLS? I already told you the implications. If they could get cells to bind in this printer, they could do it invitro. IMAGINE! A MAJOR DEFIGURING laceration being fixed in SECONDS in the middle of a battlefield! IMAGINE, gunshots severing a spine, and the whole thing being FIXED! Even STAR TREK claimed that was near impossible!

HECK, my operation was only about 7 years ago and, last I saw, it is STILL state of the art. If they could take my cells and create a new heart valve, that would have been GREAT! And it SHOULD be among the easiest things to do! FAR easier than a kidney, bladder, etc... Outside of just plain skin, WHAT could be easier? Yet they haven't even done THAT! Last I knew, even less than 1 year ago, they were STILL using cadaver skin! GRANTED, they can grow a persons own skin, but that is SLOW! They usually opt to use an expander, to grow new skin the way it has been done for like 100 years. But THAT can take MONTHS! WHY!?!?!?!? I mean if this machine COULD do that, just use IT!

Steve

I think in the midst of the amazement people have forgotten one crucial factor:

Printers are complete and utter pain in the ass.

You'll be promised that you can print your very own Ford Shelby GT only for it to report an error that's about as informative as backwards binary in wet braille prompting you to visit PC World to buy a cartridge than cost 2.5 Billion a pop. You'll get home to install it only to discover it doesn't fit. You'll return from a second trip to PC World to install only to find out that you need to buy a separate $2.5 Billion cartridge that prints out in black otherwise the £2.5 Billion colour cartridge that you just purchased doesn't work. After several more hours of purple face perseverance you still have no car.....and no hair.

The silver lining: The printer cost $30.