The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

I always like this debate and since it started in the other thread, I figured I'd continue it here.  Also, there's some new questions being raised because of advances in technology.

(http://www.proteanservices.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/3d_model_printing_service_bureau_03.jpg)

This is a 3D printer.  It is used to create plastic models for engineering...to make mock-ups of potential products very quickly.  They are finally getting somewhat reasonable in price for regular use.  As this technology continues to evolve, it will be able to create more complicated things out of different materials.

So, take a company like IKEA.  They sell you a box of carved wood, screws, and plastic pieces to put together furniture.  What happens when you can "download" the schematics and instructions to your 3D printer and create an EXACT replica of what IKEA provides, only for the price of the raw materials in the printer?

I think that this is a reality that is coming sooner than later, where we may be able to download a significant amount of actual products, rather than having to go to a store and buy them.  This will be extremely convenient for things that break.  Imagine if you lose a specific screw and can just do to the manufacturer's website and download the replacement...

I don't know. It has potential, but I still don't see a radical shift in people's purchasing habits happening right away. There's still something about purchasing things at a brick and mortar store that appeals to people and there's some logistics that make sense doing it that way as well. If I need a screw, how tough is it to go Lowe's and purchase it there? If I want to "print" it at home, wouldn't I need the right "printing" materials for example? Perhaps what you might see is Lowe's eliminating a lot of the their stock and "printing" items for you from raw materials, but I don't see people doing it in their homes at least not for a while.

(http://w-shadow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/piracy-is-not-theftreally.png)
...OK, I just wanted an excuse to post that pic.

The 3D printer is just one more step to real-life Trek-style replicators.  When those become available, you will see the real war over "intellectual property."  That will be when the rubber truly meets the road over the "ownership" of ideas.

Anyway, with regard to the whole Netflix thing, here's a thought experiment: which of the following is abuse of copyright?

a) I allow my neighbor to repeatedly order DVDs under my Netflix DVD account
b) I allow my neighbor to repeatedly stream movies under my Netflix streaming account
c) My neighbor comes over and rips one of my Netflix DVDs to a video file, brings it home, watches it, and deletes it
d) same as c), but my neighbor doesn't delete it

Today, of course not.  But when these things are standard, it's so much easier to go online, fine the EXACT part you need, print it, and be done.  You say that people like to go into a brick and mortar store.  They don't.  Otherwise, you'd buy from record stores, which are all but dead.  It's much better to instantly get what you want FOR FREE than it is to drive somewhere, try to find the right thing, and pay for it.

There's a big difference between hardware and software. Music, Video, Games etc are software, easy to download and use, you don't need any raw materials.  Hardware is a different matter. You are going to have to have the raw materials at your house to "print" the item. You thinking that all items will be able to be printed from the same raw materials? I'm not sure that's feasible. It might be, but I'm not sure. Even if it is possible you'll have to purchase the raw materials, it won't be "free".

Let's compare it to something more along the lines of what you are talking about. Suppose you want a color picture from your camera to frame on the wall. You might print that at home with your printer, paper, ink etc but a LOT of people still go to Walmart and have them do it. That way you don't have the printer nor the raw materials, Walmart supplies all that for you, plus if you have questions how to do it, they'll help you get it done. On top of that Walmart probably can afford to have a nicer printer with better software so that results are better, you can customize it etc. That's why I was suggesting perhaps you'll see Lowe's doing the "printing" for you rather than it done in your home. There are good reason to have Walmart print a photo for you rather than doing it yourself even though it can be done that way and there are lots of people who take advantage of that even though they could do it in their homes.

I don't think that example is as close as you might.

People get digital pictures so they don't HAVE to print.  Compare digital cameras to those that still use film.  Also, there's not scarcity in printing (there is with hardware) and there's no difficultly in finding what you want.  I just don't think it's a 1:1 comparison.  Also, the quality isn't exact.  If people's homes could print photos at the exact same quality as Walmart, I guarantee that they wouldn't go there to pay for photos.  We're talking about exact replicas.

I agree with you about the materials, but assume that you have the raw materials and the tech exists in people's homes.  We're speculating, after all.

Let's simplify to something much closer to what we can do right now:

Let's say that we're only working with clear plastics.  You can go to Target and buy a set of Miami Dolphins insulated drinking glasses.  Let's say that this costs $30 for a set of 4.  You can print an EXACT replica of these by downloading the plans, given that you have the raw material.  This will essentially save you $30.  ...or thereabouts.

Or this -- let's say you have an alarm clock with a plastic face.  It falls and the face cracks.  You can't just go to Lowe's and buy a replacement alarm clock face.  But if you had the 3D model info, you could print a replacement today.  The same goes for more expensive things, like taillight covers.  Rather than going to the dealer and paying to get them to mail out for your specific model, you just print a new one, instantly, by going online and downloading the plans. 

Except it will be a replica of completely clear plastic. There will be no color to the logos at all. You would then have to take the time to color the logo yourself. Also, typically the logo would not actually be in the design of the plastic glass itself. The logo is usually in the form of a pattern within the layers of plastic. Because of that, I don't think you would have any sort of design at all. You would just have clear plastic drinking glasses wouldn't you?

I was creating a fictional product of a plastic cup with the Fins logo etched in the side.  Something like this: (http://www.theglassfactory.com/07pics/1283429257.jpg)

What does that have to do with my scenario? You are wanting a photo to mount on a wall. You need a hardware solution, not a software solution. This is the exact same scenario that you are talking about when you are talking about needing a bolt. You are looking for a piece of hardware, not a piece of software.

Bingo. You really think these devices are gonna get cheap enough that anyone could put one in their home AND there will be no difference from going to someplace that has a mucher higher quality "printer"?

I don't know, I have a fairly nice printer at home that can print pretty high quality images, on par with Walmart, however I still go to Walmart mainly for 1 reason, I don't want to purchase a large stock of photo quality paper and have it laying around the house because I don't need it very often. I only need to print a high quality image once in a blue moon. Why would I want to purchase a stack of photo quality paper and keep it around the house, have to swap it in for my normal paper, change the printer settings so that it prints a high quality photo, etc? It's just as easy for me to simply take my little USB to Walmart, plug it in and print out a high quality photo in seconds. It's not just about quality, it's about the logistics of using it. When you take all of that into consideration, it's not quite as convenient as simply point and click and presto.

Well where did you get the raw materials? Did you buy them? So you had to go to the store to get them? How much did you have to pay for the materials? What if you screw up and waste a bunch of raw materials? What if you don't load the right type into the "printer" etc? I think you're simply glossing over all these potential issues like they don't matter. They do matter. That's why people don't print pictures at home today, because it's NOT simply point and click and presto, there's more to it than that and even though it's really convenient to print at home, it's not necessarily better. And I'm just talking about printing photos here, not 3 dimensional objects which I'm sure is gonna be slightly more complicated than photos no matter how good the hardware/software.

What did the raw material cost? You have to subtract that out.You're not gonna save $30, maybe you save $10. These things aren't created out of thin air, you have to put the raw materials into the "printer".

It's a great invention and perhaps one day it will have some very useful home applications, but I think you are jumping the gun just a bit. Just because the technology exists, doesn't mean everyone is going to rush out and get one and do it in their home. The reality is that type of paradigm shift takes time.

By the way, the printer you have in your photo above? 75 grand. When they come down to around 3 grand let's talk.

I just don't think photos are a good example, because digital photos are an acceptable alternative to printing photos.  It's not just a "purchase" vs. "pirate" like what we're talking about.  It introduces a third choice: print vs. purchase vs. neither.  But this is semantics.  It doesn't really matter.


Eventually, yes -- prices will be cheaper.  That's a given to this hypothetical.  We're starting with the assumption that this is a device readily available in homes and that the medium used to create it is relatively inexpensive.  Think like when VCRs because mainstream and tapes were cheap enough so that regular people could record television.


Again...photos are just a bad example.  It doesn't fit what I'm talking about.  You don't have any difficultly "finding" the photo you want, scarcity doesn't exist.  You can't go to walmart with a chance that they won't "have" your photo.  It's also not 1:1, because we're not to a point where photo printers are in everyone's homes.  Also photo printers do 1 thing: they print photos.  They doesn't have the versatility to print things for multiple uses, like we're talking about.


Again, we're assuming that the tech is available and relatively inexpensive. 


Of course it takes time.  We're talking about 30 years from now, IF these are common, what does it mean?

Not for framing on the wall they aren't.

Ok, so let's say instead of you having one of these in your home, you can go to Walmart instead? They can download the design and print it out there for you, just like the photos. Why wouldn't that be a good alternative just like with photo's? You don't have to have the printer, you dont' have to have the raw materials, you don't need to find the design Wallmart will have a link to the internet where you can simply download the design and off you go. What's wrong with doing it this way? Doesn't this make more sense or at the very least just as much sense?

Why are we still stuck on photos?

People don't print photos to hang on the wall because the technology is not readily available in homes.  It's also not cost effective.  Therefore, it doesn't apply to this hypothetical example.

If we could cheaply and easily print our own photos that were EXACT replicas of the kind you could buy at the store, people wouldn't go to the store for photos anymore.

Because you don't have an answer. The scenario you are proposing is JUST like photo's are today, but you don't want to admit it.

What? I have several photo's that my wife took on my walls in my house. I have pictures of my kids in frames scattered around the house that we took. You don't do this? Granted not everyone does this, but WE do and WE have a printer that is capable of doing it and yet we still use Walmart because it's just as convenient. It is cost effective. I'd probably save a buck or 2 every time I printed a photo if I did it at home, I already have the printer, because I use the printer a lot, just not for photo's.

I can, but I don't. It's not an exact replica, but you can't tell the difference from the photo I print on my printer and the ones we get from Walmart. I have done it this way, but we usually don't. We don't do it because of the quality we do it because it's simply very easy to do at Walmart or Wallgreens or something like that. There's practically one on every corner. Why do I need to do it at the house? Maybe if I lived out in the country away from the city then it makes more sense, but the reality is that folks that live out in the country are even less likely to print a photo in their own home then I am. Can't really see them fabricating their own drinking cups.

I'm done circlejerking.  I've explained why I don't think it's the same.

Photos are your own creation.  You aren't pirating your own photos by printing them at home.  It's just not applicable to a tangible product that a store sells.  The question I'm raising is about piracy vs theft.

Sorry, I was commenting on this part of your original post. I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear, I thought it was.

I have no comment on the whole piracy vs. theft angle.

Without reading all the responses here, I just want to add that I have experience with these 3D printers.  We have one at work, I use it almost daily.

The material which is uses in this machine is not durable, breaks easily.  Its good for rapid prototyping and quick-turn one-off parts, but the material is EXPENSIVE and not as good as original materials.

So, while you could make a 3D print of a cup with a logo etched in the side, it wouldn't be perfectly clear, probably not safe to drink from, and would cost about 10x the cost of just buying the cup.  Because all the "empty space" inside the cup gets filled with material and removed later.

I don't think 3D printing is as viable as you may think as a means of re-creating things like Ikea furniture.

Jesus Christ.

We're talking about 30 years in the future.  Not today.

OK, so now that I've read the replies...

30 years in the future, 3D printing will still be more expensive than mass production.  This is constant.  Why not go buy an injection molding machine and buy resin and mold them in your garage?  Its the same thing.

I think your lack of knowledge about 3D printing is what is crippling your judgment here.  If we're talking theoretical and not as a cost saving measure, then, fine, so be it.  But 3D printing is not likely to ever develop into a mainstream in-home technology.  No one has a CNC milling machine in their garage, and the 3D printer is similar.  Its just not practical.

Practicality, aside - if you have a 3D printer in your home, I still wouldn't want to use it to make things.  Again, the material is unpaintable, only comes in one color, and NOT clear.  In your example of the alarm clock face, sure that's a great way to fix that problem, but the 3D printed face would likely be more fragile than the original, and thus likely also break (not to mention you wouldn't be able to see the time).

This is basically what I was trying to say. People don't do this. They don't want to do this no matter how easy it is. People like to go to the store, browse the shelves, pick out something they like, fork over the cash and take it home. We are basically very lazy consumers. We want it all wrapped up with a nice bow on top. We don't mind if we have to pay a few bucks more, it's worth it because it's really our time that we are talking about. If it doesn't take much time to have someone else do all the work for us, we'll take that route. I really don't see that changing in 30 years.

The one thing I do see changing is going online and ordering what you want. What you order is not premanufactured. It's not sitting in a warehouse or at Walmart waiting for you to buy it. It doesn't exist. When you put in your order online, the 3D printer goes to work creating your product for you and ships it straight to your house or perhaps it's waiting at Walmart for you to stop by and pick it up on your way home from work. That I can see.

I think you guys are way off.  Technology gets cheap. 
Because I'm guessing those devices are very expensive and the materials are as well.  Plus, they are limited to a small number of things.

If I had a machine that was cheap and could, say, carve blocks of wood from downloadable plans, I'd probably make my own wooden bowls, that go buy expensive ones at Crate and Barrel. 

I think that if tech can get cheap enough (and it always does) and more importantly easy enough, it will make buying certain objects in stores obsolete.

While I understand your principle, I think 3D printing is not the right tree to be barking up.

There already exist machines that can carve blocks of wood into wooden bowls.  A used one will run you about $1500, and the technology has been around for 15-20 years.  However, unless you have a tree farm, the block of wood will still cost you more money than buying the wooden bowl.  Maybe pick it up at Wal Mart instead of Crate and Barrel to save some cash.  90% of that wooden block will end up on the floor of your garage, not to mention now you have to have a huge garage to hold that machine.

Maybe it would also help you to know that the 3D printer is the size of half a car.  Its not a desktop machine like a 2D printer.  Perhaps in the future there will be a desktop version.

I agree with you in principle, that making stuff yourself would be better than buying it.  But, at the same time, you can not neglect the cost of raw materials.  Your hypothesis speaks as though that cost is negligible, like its something you have an abundance of lying around your house.  Unless you can figure out how to make water a solid at room temperature (hey, since we're speculating on technology...) then I don't see how you can just outright ignore that cost.

The materials are not that expensive, the machine itself is. What makes the machine worth it is mass producing the product and marking up the price of each enough to make a decent profit over the cost of the machine. Buying a machine and purchasing the raw materials to produce only a small number, is NOT cost effective and it will NEVER be because the cost of the machine is gonna far outweigh the cost of a single product or 2. Even if the price of the 3D printer comes down to say something like 5 grand you'd have to save enough money on product to make it worth it. Remember that if YOU can buy the printer for 5 grand, what is going to stop Walmart from buying hundreds of the printers and selling the products at or near the cost you're able to make them at? You simply won't be able to make it worth it.

As far as being limited, it's only limited by the molds you buy which aren't cheap either. Yes, the 3D printer has that going for it over the injection machine, but I'm not so sure about the materials involved. I got a feeling a larger proportion of the cost would be tied up in the materials in the 3D printer. Also I'm not convinced that this technology will ever become as inexpensive as you think it will. There might be a low cost 3D printer that's affordable for home, but's it's not going to be as good or as flexible as a really expensive one that someone will use to mass produce the product.

That's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

I will always side with things being inexpensive and small enough for home use, given enough time.

I see this kind of thing as more of an inevitability.  I've heard some small uses for these printers now, where you create a character in a video game, and then the game sends your printer the 3D model to print as a figurine.  Kinda cool, but not really all that useful.

Be careful not to underestimate technology's ability to wipe out your current kind of thinking.  There are things that have changed in just the last 10 years that have totally flipped the way I look at things.  I can't imagine going into a store and buying a road-map, for example.

Why do people buy digital songs from iTunes when they can download them from the internet for free?

You're right; the situation is more like photos than you think.  People go to Walmart to print out photos because it's cheap and easy to get consistently high-quality prints, and you don't have to invest in the hardware or go out to buy replacement ink cartridges when you just want to print one photo.

Similarly, iTunes was able to succeed as a business model because it was easy, relatively cheap, and you didn't have to worry about horrible quality rips or incomplete/mislabeled songs or downloading viruses.  The name of the game is convenience.

So then, what does this have to do with future cheap 3D printers?  Will the products that you buy in the store have nice boxes and instruction manuals and product warranties?  Yes, in the same sense that DVDs today come with nice boxes and commentary tracks and deleted scenes.  And yet, people still download ripped copies without any of those things, and the media cartels howl bloody murder over it.

If you are going to respond with some argument about the cost of the printer, or the cost of the materials, or the quality of the reproduction, YOU ARE MISSING THE POINT.  It's like people in 1970 arguing that copying a reel-to-reel film requires expensive equipment and the quality ALWAYS degrades when you make a copy from a copy, plus how could anyone possibly afford all that film?  If someone had hypothesized then that people in 40 years could store 20 copies of theater-quality films with flawless video and sound on a device the size of a piece of toast, and that said device would cost about 1 day's wages at minimum wage, it would sound as ridiculous as you think home 3D printing sounds now.

20 years ago, the cost to buy and record 100 feature-film-capacity optical discs would have been astronomical.  Today it is peanuts.  You have absolutely no idea what the base material for 3D printers will cost in the future, nor how durable it will be.  Making your counterargument on those grounds is a waste of time.

Rather than arguing about the hypothetical cost of this future technology, you should answer Dave's question: what will/should the moral, ethical, and legal impact of using these future printers be?

From the "experts" I've listened to on the subject, the hypothesis is that the IKEAs of the world that now sell you wood, screws and plans, would instead sell you the RIGHTS (for a much reduced price, because you're using your own materials, and they don't have to move the items or store them) for the items.  You could download them yourself.

But I see a bigger issue:  What about "freeware".  What about a nice guy out there that creates a chair in his spare time and uploads the results for free.  Then, the need to buy a chair goes down.  It's enough to put entire industries out of business.

I think that this all comes down to food.  Everyone needs basic needs: food, clean water, waste management and access to medicine.  Other than that, I can envision a future where other "products" don't need to be retailed.

I assume your question is rhetorical because there is no fundamental difference between making a 3D "photocopy" of a bookshelf, and making a digital copy of a DVD.  No difference whatsoever.

And in response to Dave's point - While you have some instances where people might prefer to print their own furniture, I still think there will be a market for retail products.  Albeit likely scaled down, in this far-fetched and seemingly unreasonable alternate universe where we can all manufacture goods out of a printer the size of a bread box that uses no raw materials.  Just like the example above - DVD's and Music are available to frely download online.  Yet, DVD sales and CD sales (although admittedly declined) still exist.  Explain...

Who said that they will use no raw materials?

Digital copies still use raw materials: storage space (if you collect HD movies, you should be well aware that storage space quickly becomes a significant cost).  Similarly, copying CDs and DVDs uses raw materials (i.e. blank discs).  It's just that the raw materials are much cheaper than the retail product.

The premise presumes that going out and buying a box of ultraplasticine for your 3D printer is cheaper than buying the finished products.

Explain?  I think that was the point I was making.

Pappy13 was talking about the prevalence of Walmart photo-printing as "proof" that there's no market for home 3D printing.  My counterpoint was that there will always be a market for cheaper, less "fully featured" products, and that the enthusiastic pursuit of copyright infringement by the media cartels shows that they, too, are concerned with this market.

 
That's not the type that will be (is) inexpensive. There are quite a few different DIY 3D printers out there and they're quite capable of printing a cup without requiring removal of material. They work a bit like 3D inkjet printers (which does limit the geometries that can be created) except that they print in plastic,
typically PE (which is safe and what your plastic kitchenware is made of) or PLA (which is also safe and not derived from oil like other plastics). People are even printing with polycarbonate! All the materials are relatively cheap and will only continue to become cheaper.

Durability is still an issue, particularly for thin structures. Work is being done to improve that, although it is a problem to achieve at a low cost (using an oven and a cleaner, enclosed environment).

printing a cup and filling it with beer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAO0XUze2_c

polycarbonate printing:
http://www.3ders.org/articles/20120101-experiment-polycarbonate-with-diy-3d-printer.html

^^ yup almost the exact same machine we have, except our doesn't have an X-Y table for the part to move on.  The print head moves in 2 directions, and the platform goes up and down for Z.

When you said:

 "Because all the "empty space" inside the cup gets filled with material and removed later."

that doesn't fit with a 3D printer, unless I've completely misunderstood your argument.

As for material strength, price, usability etc., there are so many aspects of this that it's impossible to know what's going to be possible 10 years down the road. SLS machines use lasers to fuse particles / beads of material together and work with glass, ceramics, and metals (in addition to plastic). SLS is way too expensive and lacks precision, but I don't think it's inconceivable that it would provide a good fit at some point.

There were some photography rants in this thread and that might actually be a very good comparison, at least in terms of technology. Photographs were handled in big shops with big (expensive) machines not too many years ago. That could easily be the near future of 3D "printing". To take the previous example of the clock face, I could then just order my new clock face (or Dolphins cup) from the comfort of my home and pick it up at the local Walmart.

If the price of these objects were "right", I would be a constant customer. I can't count the number of times some little plastic thing has crapped out on me (possibly through every fault of my own). Sometimes I can glue it, sometimes I can fashion a makeshift replacement, but I'd certainly be willing to pay to get replacement if I were able to send Walmart a model of my component. Just looking at my desk right now... I have a cell phone I love that has a broken piece of plastic (from falling onto the pavement and skidding 10 yards) that cannot be replaced for less than the price of a complete replacement. Then there are the two bits of plastic that enable my keyboard to tilt (broke when accidentally applying too much pressure to the face of the keyboard *cough*). Then there's the crappy volume button on my tablet that's just not sized correctly and thus rattles a bit when using the touchscreen. And one of the ear buds of my nice earphones that has a cracked plastic thing.

Expand that to all the other crap I keep breaking and I could practically pay for a $10k machine myself ;)

There's also a lot of things that haven't fundamentally changed in years. 40 years ago they were thinking we would all have personal hovercrafts and be flying around the skies and wars would be decided by men in armored suits with ray guns. I remember reading about this stuff when I was a kid and thinking holy cow it's going to be amazing living in that world before I die. Well it hasn't happened and it doesn't look like it's going to happen. Not even close really. If you told me back in the 60's when I was watching Star Trek that the biggest feature of that show that would come to pass in the next 40 years would be the communicator device that Kirk used to talk with the Enterprise, I'd be REALLY disappointed. What no warp engines? No traveling through the galaxy? Not even our own solar system? No beaming up? No phasers? No Tricorder? No photon torpedoes? Not even elevators that move both up and down and sideways? C'MON MAN!

You can't imagine going into a store and buying a road map? That's a huge technological achievement? Compared with the invention of the light bulb, the combustion engine, the transistor, the integrated circuit, jet propulsion, putting someone on the moon, etc? In the last 40 years most of the achievements have been in scale, making things smaller, lighter, faster etc, but not fundamentally changing the technology behind it. Ipods and tablets are pretty cool and all, but but they aren't what many people were expecting 40 years ago to be the biggest technological advances. We were thinking MUCH bigger.

No, I didn't. I said that even if there's a home version that is affordable, people won't necessarily flock to it. It's just as likely that the market will change to Walmart or someone else providing the service rather than a home version of it. That's happened many times in the past.

Of course there is, but that doesn't mean it will be provided to us within our own homes or that we'll want it. The services that have really made it into the home are all software related. TV Programming. Phones. Video. Music. Internet. What hardware manufacturing have we moved into the home? Could it happen? Sure. Will it happen. I don't know.

I was using the road map example as a way to show how fast an entire culture can ditch something they grew up with in a heartbeat.  Not to show an incredible increase in technology.

But, smartphones are amazing.  That's a pretty huge deal, from where my Dad came from in a schoolhouse in Mississippi without A/C and you had to bring your own plate to eat lunch.  The Internet?  Huge.

You can't really predict what technology will be, but you can predict that it will advance.  I don't think you're giving humanity enough credit for advances in technology.  Look at computer graphics.  Crappy commercials use effects that rival the best films of just 20 years ago.  Things move quickly.

-----

One side point.  You keep pointing to software, saying "what about hardware?"  Where are the advances in hardware?  It's because better software is killing hardware.  (More accurately, reducing the need for "traditional" software.)  I don't need to have a printing press in my house, because I have a Nook.  I don't need a machine that prints records or tapes, because all of that hardware has been eclipsed by software.

How long does it take to mail a book across the country?  For the longest time, your answer was limited to how fast the boat was that carried it there...then how fast the plane was.  Then, the paradigm shifted and BAM...the book wasn't a physical product anymore.  The info was transmitted over the Internet, instantly.  That's what happens with technology.  There will be a shift in thinking that can change everything.  3D printing might evolve to be that....it might not.

There's a huge difference between "in The Future, someone will probably invent an anti-gravity belt" and "this currently existing technology will become cheaper and better."

Science fiction is not a realistic bellwether for what technology is in the pipeline, if only because science fiction entertainment generally only predicts things that are interesting.  Hybrid gasoline vehicles that are mostly indistinguishable from normal cars (except that they get slightly better mileage) are not a sexy science fiction story.

Speaking to the point of this thread, the people who don't flock to the official channels seem to be of great concern to the powers that be.

High-definition (and 3D) hardware is not a software innovation.
Touchscreen phones are not a software innovation.
Optical disc movie format (compared to film or tape) is not a software innovation.
Digital music players (compared to tape or optical disc) are not a software innovation.
Internet infrastructure is not a software innovation.

I'd say CD and DVD burning meet that qualification, in the same sense and to the extent that a 3D printer would.  And again, CD/DVD burning speak directly to the point of this thread.

I'm still waiting for someone to address Dave's original question: what will/should be the moral, ethical, and legal implications of "unauthorized" 3D printing?

Dave, every single example he used is built on hardware advancement.  If you loaded up a super-laptop with all the software and schematics you pleased and traveled back to 1982, you would not be able to do a damn thing with it.

Digital music?  You'd need a supercomputer to decode an MP3 file in real time.
Digital video?  Don't even bother.
Digital TV programming?  Ditto.
Touchscreen phones?  A processor fast enough to run iOS wouldn't even exist, and even if it did, you wouldn't be able to fit 8MB of RAM in anything you could actually lift.
Internet infrastructure would be too slow to support anything more than text; a modem that's simply capable of processing today's broadband speeds would, again, be a DARPA-level supercomputer.

The advances of today are built upon decades of hardware achievement.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-02/smithsonian-3-d-printer-please-give-me-friendship-7-call-my-own?cmpid=tw

Found this while browsing today.

No, it's not that at all, I think humanity has made incredible strides, I just think you're giving too much credit to technological strides lately. There were HUGE technological strides made in the last century, but many of them were made 40, 50, 60 years ago and are only now really reaching the potential that those people that were working on them thought they would reach at the time they were thinking them up. Think of your biggest technological devices in your home today. Your TV. Your PC. Your phone. Yes we have made huge improvements to them lately, but the basic fundemental concepts were there 40, 50, 60 years ago. We need to give a little more credit to the guys that were working on this stuff all those years ago too and realize that it's taken all that time from then until now to really make them what they are. It didn't all happen in the last 20 years, we just have started seeing the results of their work in the last 20 years.

That's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

You're absolutely right, I never said there hasn't been hardware advancements as well. What I said was just because we've had a software revolution where we're able to download software straight to the home that it's logical to assume we'll do the same with hardware in the future. That's a silly notion. Hardware and software are fundamentally different. I'll be happy to come on here and say I was wrong if that happens within my lifetime.

I (along with just about everyone I know) carry a device in my pocket at all times that allows me access to almost all of the world's information.

That is incredible and was completely unheard of and unpredictable 20 years ago.

Actually that's not that different from what Star Trek envisioned 50 years ago when Kirk opened his communicator and said "Computer.....".

Pappy13, if I understand your position correctly, if (at any point in the future) humans develop faster-than-light travel technology, Star Trek (or something else) gets credit for envisioning it... even if it has absolutely nothing to do with warp fields or dilithium crystals or antimatter injectors or anything of the sort?

Star Trek's knowledge system was built on a centralized computer, not a decentralized network.  The interface (and the infrastructure) between the systems bears little in common besides "a computer tells you stuff".  People in the 1930s who imagined future superplanes with 20 propellers don't get credit for presaging jet airliners.

No, you don't understand my position correctly. In the 60's Warp drives were pure science fiction as they continue to be today, however a communicator device that you would use to "talk" to an on-board computer didn't seem that far fetched at all. We already had telephones. We already had computers. We already had networks. Sure they were wired, not wireless, but it was easy to invision a time when instead of a wired network we would replace it with a wireless network, everyone already knew what a radio was and how it worked. Sure you couldn't simply "talk" to computers and they would respond, but again it was easy to envision that was where the technology was headed. Distrubuted computing was around too as they had connected computers to each other to try to increase their power along with the internet, it was just extremely rudimentary, expensive and exclusive. Phones didn't fit easily into your hand they were in a large heavy box and they only transmitted voice signals, not video, but again people foresaw a time when the phone would be small enough to fit into your pocket. And all those things came about, but not in 10 or 20 years, it took more like 40 or 50 years. Even though much of the basic technology was already in place it would take many many more tiny technological advances to finally get to the point they had envisioned way back when they started.

That's my point Spider, that wireless cellphones and distributed computing DIDN'T just come along in the last 20 years. It's been being built little by little for the last 50 years.

Kirk only talked with the centralized computer on the Enterprise because it was the only thing in range of his communicator, but the centralized computer on the Enterprise was capable of communicating with Starfleet command and it's computers. Kirk was just talking with his local server. :)

^ But what does that have to do with anything?

Wouldn't you expect similar, incremental advances in 3D printing?

Yes, but it won't be "I think that this is a reality that is coming sooner than later". That's all that I was saying, that it takes longer than we think it will.

3D printing is rudimental, expensive and exclusive today. How long will it take before each of us has one of these things in our house? I don't know, I just don't think it will be that soon. Maybe not in my lifetime.

I kind of skimmed this argument...

Jeff Dunham (ventriloquist comedian) in his Bio channel biography (I watched it one late night) Used a 3D printer,to make his latest doll.They had cut ins showing him going through his year long process of making the doll.He was a sculpter,and made most (if not all)of his previous dolls..He had a guy on Mad magazine illustrator,come up with sketches based on what Jeff was wanting,He then sculpted the head in clay,then scanned it to make a 3d model,cleaned up the model for the 3D printing (they acted like it was his quite large 3d printer,it appeared to be in his shop/studio in his basement) I think they mentioned this was the largest project he ever did with the printer,and did it two halves...It took like 18-24 hours...Then painted it,clothed it,etc,etc...

It's the "best" thing I've ever really seen come out of a 3d printer so far...I kind of bring it up to make this point...

Whether it's a Milling machine,3d printer,automated routing maching,Laser etcher,A desktop computer,How about a Dremel,A wood/metal lathe,a wood router? ...It's still just a tool...I think it goes to the cost effectiveness of what you do with it.

How many things in your house are you capable of laser etching to make it worth your while to buy one?

I'd love to have an automated router like Ben Heck (super modder) has,Lay it out in illustrator,input it in the router program,put a 1" piece of Plywood in,and cut all the pieces for whatever project I need...

A desktop computer for me,is worth it for me...I have an I7860,16GB's of ram,ATI 6000 series video card.. (I'm planning on doing another build May-June maybe of this year to an Ivy bridge I7,maybe an SSD drive) I need this for my 3d modeling stuff,I have no need for a tablet computer.....

I think the market for most of this stuff just isn't big enough to be main stream,between cost to buy,versus usage,and let's throw in space to use this type of equipment.I just feel (unless there is some incredible break though in Technology) this stuff is going to be high end hobby people,or people in business for them self type stuff...(Pappy's point really)

My two cents...

I kept trying to remember where I first saw a 3D printer and it was the same program. Thanks for the memory jog.

I hate to drag this up,but Popular mechanics has an article about 3d printing and laws...it kind of fits this ....(there is an article link in the story about Jay Leno using a 3d printer make parts for some of his old cars....(I admit I just skimmed both articles)
http://www.popularmechanics.com/how-to/blog/sxw-the-looming-legal-battles-over-3d-printing-7333888?click=pm_latest (http://www.popularmechanics.com/how-to/blog/sxw-the-looming-legal-battles-over-3d-printing-7333888?click=pm_latest)

I randomly gravedug this today and find the discussion of the prediction of 3D printer advancement pretty interesting.

They're not in every home, but I personally know several people who operate one regularly.  My understanding of how to use them differs from some predictions.  I wouldn't print a cup, for example, but hard-to-find or unique stuff, absolutely yes.

And while the idea of printing parts yourself definitely exists, it's likelier that you will have to 3D model it yourself.

They're also much cheaper.  One hypothetical was getting them under $3000 ...and we were talking about a 30 year timeline.  They're as little a few hundred bucks and it's been 9 years.

Hell yeah, lets print some firearms

Make sure you use a plastic or carbon fiber material...so you don't trigger the metal detectors at the Capitol.   ;)

Nah, was just joking, 3D printing is too much trouble. I'll just continue to buy Glock, Sig, and AR 80% receivers. Cheap enough, legal, and no FFL required. Build guns and guitars with my new found spare time, haha.

I like my guns the way Biden likes his voters..... undocumented and untraceable.

Since the Democrats don't think we need mandatory ID for voting. In turn we shouldn't need ID to exercise our 2nd amendment right. Therefore I have acquired a few AR and Glock 80% lowers. Unfortunately, right now for the time being, I'm pretty much retired and it's boring as hell. Game consoles, video cards, firearms, ammo, AND gun parts are impossible to find.

Interestingly enough, 80% lowers are easy to find. Just wish someone would come out with an 80% polymer DA/SA with decocker to build. Something like a poly frame Beretta 92 or Sig 226/2022. Not really a fan of Glocks. But I guess they still go pew pew pew.

On the 3D printer topic. Too much trouble for me with 80% lowers so readily available. But I have a friend with a 3D printer, but he's scared to get online to do the research and find the files needed. He thinks they're "WATCHING" him. I keep telling him that a 3D printed lower isn't any different than a retail 80% lower.

Why would you say this?

Is that a real question? LMAO

Yes