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Peer To Peer Meets Manufacturing
Crashmarik writes "Small times has an article detailing UCB advances in desktop manufacturing. They raise the possibility for effectively downloading physical objects through the net. We have allready seen the reaction "Property Holders" over downloading music, what is the likely upshot of being able to copy physical objects. More importantly what are the implications for our society as we move out of an age of scarcity to an age of plenty ?" Great article - the author of it also won The Foresight Institute's prize in communications for 2002.
Desktop manufacturing is a long, long, long way off. You can do it with plastic bits, MAYBE circuit boards, but not much else. Technologies like these have revolutionized the manufacturing process - rapid mold prototyping for casting, and C&C machining of parts.
The fact remains though that you're not going to get the strength of cast aluminum or forged metal without very expensive equipment - that's not pessimism, that's physics.
..don't panic
These are cool. You can build any *shape* you want. Too bad you're limited to one (or a few) specific materials chosen more for their useability in this process than for other useful properties. What do you do when you need a copper winding for a motor? Iron core for a transformer? Hardened steel for a bearing race?
Basically, you can use these to make toys, mockups, and maybe most of the parts for certain items. But don't expect them to replace real manufacturing anytime soon.
What motivation is there to create something, you say?
For recognition perhaps, but probably for the same reasons that open source projects work. Because somebody needs the invention to solve a problem.
You're confusing capitalism with innovation. People don't create things to make a profit. People create things to solve problems. Companies sell things to make a profit.
If there were not companies and no profits, the need for new inventions would not go away. When there are no more problems to invent solutions to, human nature dictates that we'll make more problems to solve!
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
"This technology is going to be bought out and buried, just like hydrogen combustion engines in the mid-nineties."
... would get STOMPED in the market if everyone could start selling their own designs"
That is entirely an urban legend, like the 200 mpg carburetor. This did not happen: the grave is empty.
"Big Business will never let this go through, ever."
Not true either, since business can profit from such things if they actually exist
"Corporations
It does not work this way. Look at music: people still prefer to download (legal or not) the products of the major record labels, even though "Self-designed" stuff is all over the place, often legally free.
"Corporations, with their long product cycles, their relatively low rate of innovation,"
Low rate? What do you mean?