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Envisioning the Desktop Fabricator
mkl writes "Yesterday I fantasized about a generator of matter. Not a laser plotter for carving 3d objects, but a device that will assemble any given object from its base, out of atoms. I was thinking about a device that can find its place under the roofs of all the people working on PCs all over the world. So I fantasize about it at work and what do I see in the Wired News newsletter? 'Any product, any shape, any size -- manufactured on your desktop! The future is the fabricator.' Heh."
Yesterday I fantasized about a generator of matter ... a device that will assemble any given object from its base, out of atoms.
I also fantasized about a generator of matter, one that was able to generate Natalie Portman right in front of me complete with a handbag full of a strange gritty substance. Ooooh yeah.
I can fabricate the perfect woman! Now, where can I get one of these things?
Try actually thinking for yourself. It's quite refreshing.
First post to mention The Diamond Age : Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (Bantam Spectra Book) by NEAL STEPHENSON. All about nano-tech and fabricators and stuff.
Test 1 2 3 4
.. what would you make ?
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
Congratulations, you just invented the idea of the matter replicator. Only 16 years after Star Trek The Next Generation.
Something similar (utilizing some kind of 3-d inkjet printer with hot, liquid plastics für ink) was presented in the mid-1990s at some trade fair I went to. Matter of fact, I think I have also seen these on TV, building evolving robots (not joking, cannot remember the context, thought)
Screw the FSM - Real geeks believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn
Yesterday I fantasized about a generator of matter as well! And after a little repetitive friction was added, this generator of matter did indeed generate some matter which I had to clean up with some kleenex.
But the article really doesn't have a lot of meat, I was hoping for an actual machine available today like a nice small CNC machine that fits under my desk that I can put a block of plastic in and walk out with a new dog toy
Am I too late with the "I'm fabricating a woman!" comment? :)
you mean like a replicator off of star trek, right?
I bet even a diamond-encased iPod would break when you sat on it... Still gotta buy that plastic case!
That's not a soda... it's a caffeine delivery device!
Tea, Earl grey, Hot!
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
Imagine that, building the woman of your dreams one ATOM at a time - only to have her leave to find the man of HER dreams! something about my protruding teeth.. Young buck, Mr. Ed.
Smile.
Yeah, you use a hack to capture the instructions for atomically building the latest gadget or toy and then everyone shares it over bittorrent.
How is this idea different from replicators on Star Trek anyway?
.... and you thought Lexmark ink was expensive!!
This would be one step closer to the Star Trek universe, no?
SNACKS ARE AWESOME
This is OLD news!
What, is it just a really, really slow news day?
It's not called the fabricator, it's called The Feed. Nell can show you how to use one.
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
Not to troll, but vaporware it too concrete a term for this technology. Emperors may be impressed, as well as Marketing people.
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
...once created, throw the entire world economy into chaos? Of course I am referring to not a simple fab as the article is talking about, but what it is insinuating at, a device capable of assemling things at the atomic level.
Think about it.. once you buy such a device, no matter *what* the initial cost, you could use it to make almost anything... including, other devices!
Such a device would make physical goods value-less. The only things of value any longer would be services and artistic creations.
Then again, this all sounds way too good to be true. We're not evolved enough as a sepcies to have that kind of tech - think also - everyone instantly has access to unlimited weapons. Great.
We would kill ourselves off as a species within days.
Then again maybe that's not a bad thing.
THe profit margin's gotta suck on these things, since you could just fabricate another fabricator and give 'em to your friends.
"Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine No Posessions?'" -- Elvis Costello
sigs, as if you care.
I saw a prototyping machine at a recent trade show, that could lay down ABS plastic. For a six cubic inch toy wheel, it was an overnight job. It wasn't neceessarily a desktop unit, it was still considerably larger in footprint than an HP LaserJet 4, and is floor standing, I think.
It also costed $25,000.
The machine type described are good for prototyping and custom parts, but there are usually better mass production methods. Laying down atom-by-atom will be slow for a loooong time and at best be of most consequence to nanomachines for that time.
Engines of Creation: http://www.foresight.org/EOC/
Not everyone thinks this is only a dream. Of course, many people think these people are crazy.
But one must reach a bit beyond the accepted if one is to achieve something greater than the norm.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
First described by Erik Drexler in 1986 ("Engines of Creation"). For those who have not been keeping up, check out www.foresight.org
There is not nearly enough love in the world, but there is far too much trust.
http://www.bathsheba.com To start building a model from my 3D file, the design is built up, one layer at a time, from steel powder held in place by a laser-activated binder. ... This produces a porous steel part that is about 60% dense. ... The model is heated, the stems are dipped in a crucible of molten bronze, and capillary action causes the bronze to wick throughout the piece. Counterintuitive to say the least, but apparently it works very well.
Perfect for would be bank robbers...could circumvent hand gun legislation. Just think you get pissed at your parents or teacher or whatever and poof you can make your own 9mm like now! Somehow I think this concept will be a while in coming. It certainly will be not very usefull for a long long time. The only really practicle use I can think of off the top of my head is for creating synthetic componds. Like an analogue of ricin? Yipes...Like all great potential technology it will need to be used very carefully.
at a speed of 1 billion atoms per second takes about 20 million years.
Slow, slow.
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
Piracy - it's not just for software anymore...
Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
People all over the world fabricating illegal weapons and killing each other with them.
Doesn;t that signify a flaw in the concept of economics rather than material science?
Imagine the day when robots do most of the work.. Building, manufacturing, construction, planting.. Who can beat a machine specialized at a task?
Remember the GM workers in Detriot replaced by machines on the assembly lines?
At some point when the world is all SERVICE oriented.. because none actually produces anything.. Then all the people who HAVE money will be KINGS and QUEENS. Make sense?
I think so.
Smile.
..in say, 25 years, when they are advanced enough, you could tell such a fab to fab the parts for itself?!?!
You then have a fab that can fab fabs. That's the economic singularity point - the initial cost of the fab is then irrelevant - it could be millions, or billions, it doesn't matter because one can create another, ad-infinitum.
At that point you have an economic breakdown on a global scale, since anyone can create anything from anything else.
Yesterday I fantasized about a generator of matter... So I fantasize about it at work and what do I see in the Wired News newsletter? 'Any product, any shape, any size -- manufactured on your desktop! The future is the fabricator.' Heh.
So what? You think you're the oracle just because you had an idea that many people had before you and coincidently saw a magazine article about that same idea?
-Colin
We'd just have a little label that says you cannot fabricate copyrighted/patented material, and you will be sued. That has solved every other copying problem :)
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
http://www.bathsheba.com/ it is way cool.
That's what it'll result in. Giant robots with backpacks full of antimatter using a nanolathe to build bases and turrets. Nobody will come out of that unharmed ;-)
Seriously though, it'll probably be a big mess if this kind of thing is ever invented. There's enough trouble already with "intellectual property". Imagine if everything suddenly was like that. Would sure make life interesting.
I haven't done much research on this subject, but I'm guessing that the most potential for this technology is in electronics. As long as the "ink" is reasonably priced, imagine downloading or designing custom circuits. No hassles of tracking down that hard to find IC chip, drilling PCB boards, or soldering those tiny beads. LEDs could be designed into the board instead of merely soldered to it. NASA would love this stuff.
...a replicator?
Wake up.
"Think about it.. once you buy such a device, no matter *what* the initial cost, you could use it to make almost anything... including, other devices!"
Depends on what it is? If it's a energy to matter converter/manipulator? The energy has to come from somewere, and lots of it. If it's a matter manipulator? Then you have to get the matter from somewere, and not all matter may be suitable.
"Such a device would make physical goods value-less. The only things of value any longer would be services and artistic creations."
Like they are now?
"Then again, this all sounds way too good to be true. We're not evolved enough as a sepcies to have that kind of tech - think also - everyone instantly has access to unlimited weapons. Great."
Like I said before. We're not ready. But then that puts us in conflict with those who do, damn the evidence to the contrary.
blonde, with an IQ of 150 please.
*presses button*
All your base are belong to Google.
Ah - but, how would such an economy work? Think about it.
What service would you possibly sell? And what are the people paying you with, and why do you want it? You don't have to buy anything anymore, you can make it with your fab. Food, water, shelter, entertainment. all are costless. So why would you bother providing services to anyone in exchange for something?
Such a revolution could only lead to one of two inevitable systems:
1) The world becomes a Star-Trek like Utopia. poverty, hunger, and want are all eliminated almost overnight. People spend their daily lives pursuing things that challenge them intellectually , or work to further the species as a whole.
2) The world descends into utter chaos. Since everything is free, no one has any power over anyone any longer. Governments are thrown into disarray. Wars erupt. The whole species is nearly anniahlated in thermonuclear holocost.
If you refill your fabricator with non-Lexmark atoms, your Make Head may prematurely clog or misalign causing dangerous potential mutations when replicating biological materials.
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
Calvin: "If you could have anything in the world right now, what would it be?"
Hobbes: "Hmm..."
Calvin: "Anything at all! Whatever you want!"
Hobbes: "A sandwich."
Calvin: "A SANDWICH?!? WHAT KIND OF STUPID WISH IS THAT?!"
Calvin: "Talk about a failure of imagination! I'd ask for a trillion billion dollars, my own space shuttle, and a private continent!"
Hobbes: (eating sandwich) "I got MY wish."
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
I've got 3 in my XP machine. They're not that expensive, quit whining about it.
Portman, Natalie, Gritts, Hot.
In fact, I would *embrace* this kind of change - if society was ready for it. Unfortunatly, I don't think we as a species have evolved to the point where we can exist without primal competition among one another for resources.
These kinds of things need to be treade don lightly, or we will bring about our own destruction.
Here I come, naked and petrified miss Portman!
Or are you saying it can make living things?!
Wow, I think that's dangerously close a geek's sex fantasy.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
"Heh," indeed. Actually, I think Freeman Dyson was speaking about nanoassemblers in the 50s... Drexler was the first to assemble a full theoretical defense of the idea. (Though some still think it's fantasy regardless)
I can't imagine how it feels to publicly embarass yourself by posting a 'new idea' that is 60 years old.
PS. The entire text of ENGINES OF CREATION can be read at foresight.org!
Because it costs nothing to make everything, space travel is now also costless.
So anyone can just fab up a space shuttle and some scavenger robots and set them lose in the solar system, collecting any elements that are sufficintly rare enough on Earth to warrant such a hassle.
Geesh, we have been using 'rapid prototype' technology in the automotive industry for some time now..
Sure its cool, but dont get so worked up about it..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I remember seeing them on Discovery and stuff a few years ago, practical for that kind of use, but actually making anything more complex than a plastic model of something wasn't feasible.
All your base are belong to Google.
There will have to be some built-in limits on what can be made in a "Desktop Fabricator", however, otherwise an intelligent enough machine could end up like the maker in Warren Ellis' excellent "Transmetropolitan" series; constantly manufacturing and taking its own drugs.
~jeff
Just imagine the legislation and lawsuits! Hint: there are things called "design patents' that are meant to cover physical form and function. Regardless of any real IP issues, I'm sure there will be a TON of resistance to Desktop Fabricators, even as ordinary people embrace them.
Look at the Desktop Fabricator as a physical analog to general purpose computers and the Internet. Just like the computers and the Internet reduce the marginal cost of duplicating information, the Desktop Fabricator does the same for physical things.
There are a LOT of people making a LOT of money on scarce things, who won't want them to become plentiful. In truth the entrenched TPTB don't want an Economy of Abundance, because they make their money and garner their power based on control of scarce resources.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Now that the methods for creating the exact same thing that is mined out of the best sites, only 100% perfect 100% of the time with no waste.... are becoming more accessible and common, it's scaring the shit out of those who have been in total control for as long as anyone can remember.
All your base are belong to Google.
Desktop fabrication in a specific area, say software, is still pretty uncommon. Nevermind that program generators for cobal have been around for ages. A buddy who has been in IT since the only computers around were made of vacuum tubes has coupled his cobol generators with some program conversion utilities he wrote and now generates java programs based by specifying what they are supposed to do, rather than coding in java. One would think this sort of thing would be much more common in software.
An earlier
There have also been articles on hydroforming, foam in place construction, etc.
As for rapid prototype '3-D' printers, the articles author seems to miss two major uses of this technology. Form and fit prototypes, and most common, rapid pattern making for casting.
Yes, it's happening within specific industries, big time, but the general purpose desktop fab is far in the future.
Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!
You "fantasized about a generator of matter". Nice how you make it sound like an original idea, mr smart-guy. Let's see, the concept's been around in television since at least the first season of Star Trek Next Generation. Probably has been thought of even earlier in sci-fi books.
This would throw the world economy into chaos since any industry based on the manufacture of goods would suddenly be SOL.
Of course, corporations would try to "fix" this situation with DRM-encoded recipes. Anyone can make a shoe (with the help of open source), but if you want the new spectacular Nike shoe recipe you have to spend money...the recipe components are downloaded to your nanofactory and boom, you have the "cool" shoe.
What this would do would be to make branding more important that it already is. Emphasis will be placed on quality and style of the product instead of usability (which will be possible to gain for practically nothing). Stephenson thought that this would give rise to a whole new artisan class of the economy which I agree is possible.
There will be economic restabilization, and that's going to mean a lot of death and suffering for a lot of people. Since people kill each other over resources anything that creates a massive alteration in how resources (and thus people) are controlled will result in war, whether they can produce the weapons from nanofacotries or not . But you just wait, this is only a precursor to the real suffering.
The real danger of this, at least for me, isn't economic restabilization, but population control. With such a device food will be possible to create even more easily. No need for crops, cattle or any other "source" of food. All food can be manufactured for the simple cost of energy needed to combine the appropriate atoms.
Any ecologist will tell you that the one thing that limits a population is food. (lots of people debate this and say humans are different. That we control our population at will, however since the "invention" of agriculture the world's human population has done nothing but go up. When the world's population starts decreasing because of self-imposed limits, then I'll listening to how we determine our own carrying capacity). World hunger is a constant issue now, but if everyone in the world can eat, I assure you that the world's next generation will be even bigger. And if all of them can eat...well you see where I'm going.
The only thing limiting (and I use that word loosely) global population is the manufacture and distribution of food. If those limitations are taking away the world is soon going to be a very cramped and unlivable place.
the obvious choice is Sane and Hot.
All your base are belong to Google.
Perhaps you're spending too much time in the company bathroom? Its difficult to link to your fantasies btw. There's innumerable science fiction links that your could have made... But perhaps you were looking for a tissue after all this "fantasizing"
I.E. You're not going to be turning lead into gold, but you could turn lead and wood into a pencil.
Slashdot, the only place where intellectuals can act like idiots... and still sound intellectual.
Is to get some rich and generous person to get down to the patent office to patent all combinations of desktop nano-tech based manufacturing systems. That way, by the time they are actually techonologically fesiable, all the patents will have expired!
Isn't it obvious what people would make?
First they would make nuclear bombs. Then they would try to rule the world. Then someone would accidentally detonate said nuclean bomb and that would be the end of that.
Scary, scary technology idea. I hope it never comes to fruition!
It strikes me that although we may have mass consumer 3-d plotter type stuff that can create objects out of certain substances, or maybe a combination of a few materials, atom-by-atom assembly is going to be a long way off, if ever. At the very least it will require very advanced nanobots.
But what is more likely is biological printers that grow stuff out of cells. It will be much easier to let the cells do the work of reproducing and just induce specialization into a lattice of pre-grown tissue through chemical infusion.
This wouldn't be home genetic engineering, just creation of specialized tissue from a batch of pre-cooked cells of a fixed genome. It could be some other organism's genome, plant or animal or something specially designed for object replication, or even, your own...
So in 50 years or so, you or a doctor may be "printing" out a new patch of skin for your tatoo removal or a new seed for a lost tooth, or high follical count skin for your balding head. Or a tentacle to help you type faster. Or, well, I don't really want to even get into where elective plastic surgery is likely to go in the next decade with reguard to certain less seemly "self-enhancements" people might be inclined to make, nevermind the concept of "home bio-generation kits."
It's truly scary stuff -- let's just say tomorrow's anime conventions may not require costumes for the truly devoted fans.
Someone had to do it.
More importantly the easy home brew chemical applications are really dangerous. To create a hand gun from scratch would take thousands of millenia at the current rate of atom transfer used. However the creation of synthetic compounds from scratch is not very far off! Given a Moores law analysis of the technology being used.
1. Make matter creation device
2. Create gold and diamonds
3. Profit!
Alternately, make a Rolex and tell those spammers to get lost!
As if there wasn't enough stuff on the top of my desk already.
And this thing -makes- more stuff...
Blue screen of that spider head from The Thing.
Microsoft recommends MS Fabricator customers do not turn off automatic updates and to keep one spare flame thrower on each floor.
I'm not sure why he thinks that objects fabricated by consumers will be flimsy and low-quality. Most likely, a process which actually placed atoms individually would default to making everything out of diamond, just because it's simple. Laser-cutters work nicely on hard plastics, and don't really work on the flimsy stuff just because you're actually carving the thing out of a solid block that has to not wobble while you cut it. It's only easier to make wimpy items than strong ones if you're using a melting technque (vacuum=forming or injection-molding), while then requires that you have a physical mold that you're using, which isn't going to be a "download-and-fabricate" process. It'll actually probably be much more difficult to make soft items than hard ones.
Warren Ellis's comic series Transmetropolitan featured this technology "maker".
:-)
You'd have to feed it matter to make stuff, and not all matter was equal (might lack some elements I suppose), so free garbage wouldn't work out so well.
And you had to put a "lock" on your maker or it would spend all day using up your raw materials making drugs for itself. I liked that idea
I've always wondered - with the technology of the future - what viruses and technological gags would be like. There are a few "holodeck" episodes about this, but it could go farther.
I'd imagine when in 2350 the captain orders his hot tea and "Windows Starship Edition" clunks out a glass of hot pthactol blood he won't be very happy. Makes for an amusing prank possibility though. That and the "nude" holodeck patch...
Does that mean I can make me a pair (Yes a PAIR) of Natalie Portmans?!!!
---START SIG It is better to know that you have lost than to NOT know that you have won! ---END SIG
With all the hassle we have now with copying/stealing software, think of the fuss companies like Ferrari will kick up when we can do the same to their products.
Finally, modern day pirates could actually snaffle gold doubloons.
Unfortunately, I am not Wil Wheaton
And so begins the new movement.
This thing could potentially put product manufacturing as we know it out of business.
"Hey man, download the new version of that lawnmower bot! It's really cool! I've got some patches that have yet to be accepted into the main tree, but it pulls weeds as it cuts the grass! Pretty cool eh?"
Worse yet, EVERYTHING becomes intellectual property... not just software, patents, and the like, but EVERYTHING.
This would imply the world were information is finally the most valuable thing a man can have! Everybody would be happy, especially the smart ones :) The true revolution of information! Yup!, another Star Trek utopia and every philosophers true-hearted vision.
Does anybody think that we will as the whole mankind (as we know it today) survive till this point?
Lets have a great hope, patience and will!
is a blonde? :P
Now all geeks can create a girlfriend!
It's Jar Jar Binks' brain. It was not wise to do that army thing.
Your head a splode
Great. I've always wanted my own full size Sear's Tower on my desktop. . .
Graphite and wood into a pencil. . .
(it's slashdot. . . someone had to say it)
Actually, I'm serious; beer is a manufactured product but it requires a biological process to make it. How will the fabricator handle this case?
Personally, I'm still waiting for a "replicator" - as in "Computer, Alexander Keith's IPA at 2 degrees Centigrade". None of that synthehol crap for me.
myke ("mmmm Beer") predko
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Cool, I can fabricate hundreds of gabe newell models and due to thier weakness and "second hand" nature, STEAM them into oblivion !!
Muuuuhahahah - Mooooohahahahha !
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
> fantasized about a generator of matter,
> one that was able to generate [image of beauty]
> right in front of me complete with a handbag
> full of a strange gritty substance...
this fantasizing of procuring women from stone has persisted
thousands of years in the greek legend of 'pygmalion galatea'
Pygmalion and Galatea in Greek Mythology
Pygmalion saw so much to blame in women that he came at last to abhor the sex, and resolved to live unmarried. He was a sculptor, and had made with wonderful skill a statue of ivory, so beautiful that no living woman came anywhere near it. It was indeed the perfect semblance of a maiden that seemed to be alive, and only prevented from moving by modesty. His art was so perfect that it concealed itself and its product looked like the workmanship of nature. Pygmalion admired his own work, and at last fell in love with the counterfeit creation. Oftentimes he laid his hand upon it as if to assure himself whether it were living or not, and could not even then believe that it was only ivory. He caressed it, and gave it presents such as young girls love, - bright shells and polished stones, little birds and flowers of various hues, beads and amber. He put rainment on its limbs, and jewels on its fingers, and a necklace about its neck. To the ears he hung earrings and strings of pearls upon the breast. Her dress became her, and she looked not less charming than when unattired. He laid her on a couch spread with cloths of Tyrian dye, and called her his wife, and put her head upon a pillow of the softest feathers, as if she could enjoy their softness.
The festival of Aphrodite was at hand - a festival celebrated with great pomp at Cyprus. Victims were offered, the altars smoked, and the odor of incense filled the air. When Pygmalion had performed his part in the solemnities, he stood before the altar and timidly said, "Ye gods, who can do all things, give me, I pray you, for my wife" - he dared not say "my ivory virgin," but said instead - "one like my ivory virgin."...
--
sometimes you don't get what you want, but you get what you need.
go for the real thing, reciprocal exchange is so much better...
best regards,
j
Another major difference is that desktop nanotech will be within our grasp within a few decades at most, but not Star-Trek-style Replication.
I can't wait for the hilarity to ensue when the uber-capitalists start complaining about the first wave of people "copying" McDonalds burgers and Gilette blades, rather than vastly down-sizing their old-business models to adjust to a new world of abundance and cheap luxury. Just the death of Wal-Mart, and the actual elmination of world hunger is enough to make me giddy.
Anyway, here's to hoping we even survive a future of matter like data (followed closely by Singularity) with our primitive brains not synched to the increasing power of our tech...
--
Power to the Peaceful
As for throwing the world economy into chaos, I'd say it would do exactly the opposite. If everyone can make anything they want, that means everyone can now feed and clothe themselves. A world full of well fed, well clothed and shod people is not what I call "chaos".
The uber-elite rich of the world probably won't like the fact that their status now means a little less, but they don't give half a sh!t about the 'little people' so I won't be crying them a river either.
As for unlimited weapons, that could be a problem, unless everyone has equal access, and then I think only the extreme aggressives and nutcases would be an issue; I mean, if everyone has a (gun/rpg/tank/lightsaber), there's no power gradient to take advantage of. Nearly everyone can make a fist or pick up a rock, but not everyone does so.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
It isn't a molecular fabricator.
But a machine that can mill 5 or 6 micron wide details does for me today what tomorrow I won't be able to do with a 'molecular fabricator'.
Did I mention I'm a chemist?
If you want molecular precision, is can happen. If you want to build larger structures, it can happen.
Bridging between different size domains isn't as simple as drawing a large CAD model of something and saying make-it-so. The complexity of design of a significant item would be huge. It wouldn't lead to easily reproduced common items or circuits.
Nice idea, too bad it's not new. Nice to keep it fresh in our minds though.
Then again, this all sounds way too good to be true.
Probably because it is too good to be true. They're just so many flawed assumptions behind the idea of the desktop replicator that puts it on the same level as warp drive, a literary device that is good for those moments when you need the hero to create an object on the fly, but really bad when talking about future economics.
Such a device would make physical goods value-less. The only things of value any longer would be services and artistic creations.
Whoa! Hold on here just a minute! There are a large number of costs involved in producing a physical good. While your machine might be able to eliminate the labor costs, you still have to deal with the costs of raw materials, the costs of time, the costs of design, and the cost of energy.
Just in terms of energy costs, it is quite possible that it is cheaper to create a toaster using traditional metallurgy than to try to assemble a toaster atom by atom. The big problem with assembling metal objects atom by atom is how you deal with oxygen. When you are working with ingots, sheets, and wires, the fact that contact with oxygen is limited to the surface area helps quite a bit. The smaller the particles that you try to push around, the worse the oxygen problem becomes. Once oxidized, separating oxygen away from what you want to work with is a hugely expensive process in terms of energy. The reason why living organisms prefer to work with carbon is because carbon is one of the few elements for which the energy trade-offs are reasonable for both oxidation and reduction.
The second problem is time. It is not necessarily the case that a fabricator will be able to produce a widget atom by atom in a time frame that is competitive with an assembly line. This also adds value to products.
I think that there is also a basic misunderstanding of economics expressed here on this topic. Economics is not just about our current fuzzy version of capitalism. Economics applies to just about any situation in which you have local surpluses and local scarcities. Even with a desktop fabricator, there are still surpluses and scarcities that do not spell an end to economics.
Appropriate you .sig you have there :)
though whether it's you or me that is surprised, is debatable.
All your base are belong to Google.
Assuming mankind survives long enough, we will figure out how to mass-assemble objects at the atomic level.
A project that could be built today might look like a software component and various fab services.
The software is 3D modeling, but instead of using the normal primitives (box,sphere,cylinder) the metaphor is real phyiscal stock. For example, you start with a stock of aluminum and you "route" a groove on the surface. The software generates an instruction set (printer file) which specifies which stock parts to use and how to drill them.
The fab provider interprets these instruction sets into "move table A to stock metal location B, place object C on table A, move table A to CNC machine D, place object C on machine D, mill object C on machine D" etc.
Any thoughts?
If enough people use it this way, then that is what it means. In fact, I'd bet that more people use the phrase in the way the grandparent did than in the way you suggest.
1.) Get bunch of goop
2.) Feed plans for little fighting robots through the fab lab
3.) Assemble "zerg rush" type army, take on everyone else
4.) Profit!!
Sounds good. Now we just need the fab labs, and better hope no one else does it first. Who said playing StarCraft doesn't help in everyday interaction?
It's 104 degrees, dumbass.
I hear in 50 years we may have a base on the moon, real AI, and Jet Cars too!
How about a factory-sized de-fabricator? Place your city's garbage in, obtain raw purified matter on the other side. Example: Toss in an old printer. Obtain carbon, Silicon, various metals, and O2, ready for manufacturing again. Same with home waste.
;)
So instead of filling landfills, we can generate raw materials for use in manufacturing. No need to mine for them. It's recycling at an atomic level.
Now we need a machine that can handle all that waste really quickly, and be able to distinguish between different atoms to sort them properly... Piece of cake!
Metal parts can already be made out of very fine powder fused by a precision laser. These machines are made by 3D Systems and EOS from Germany. They cost between $400,000 and $800,000 and can make complex mold and part shapes whithin a few hours to a day depending on size. Machines can also make plastic and foundry casting patterns from foam particles.
Straight from CAD to finished part with no machining, quite amazing actually!
Anyhow, on a post-apocalyptic Earth (as always) the saviors of humankind are these huge bloblike aliens who fabricate anything people want from them out of dust. Cars, houses, clothes, food, etc. Problem is people have been depending on these aliens for so many generations that they have no idea how make anything, and they aliens are starting to die off (and all the things the aliens conjured are falling apart)--panic ensues. Enter the hero who shows people an ugly, crude clay mug that he made himself.
[pink beam of light]
Pygmalion thought his ivory statue was a virgin? Sucker!
"Yesterday I fantasized about a generator of matter."
What a coincidence, yesterday I was fantasizing too and I did generater matter, it was a viscous translucent organic based liquid!
"The energy cost issue is a mirage. Buy the replicator. Make solar cells. Bingo, NO energy cost issue."
E=M*C^2 plus the Law of Thermodynamics say otherwise.
and the fact of the matter is the second that such a device is developed, economics will change forever... i mean, all you really would have to purchase is a single replicator and energy to run it, and youd be set for life. free market collapses
the end
The alchemists holy grail was creating gold from another material.
e re nce/11/
e s/apr2001/98738 7307.Sh.r.html
http://www.nornik.ru/en/production/products_ref
We've accomplished that. But the cost involved in the power alone makes it uneconomical.
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archiv
Also seen on History Channel.
Just because you have the power to do something doesn't mean you should.
Edwin
www.acmenews.com
People all over the world fabricating legal weapons and killing each other with them! Teh horr0r!
mwahahahaha ;)
All your base are belong to Google.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnIn quiry.asp?isbn=0380975092&itm=22
Rudy Rucker is one of the Unsung Cyber-Type authors, and is a genuine Techie, to boot.
This book covers the very topic, to an n-th degree and is very cleverly done.
I would also recommend "White Light" and all the other "Ware" books.
My cat's picked up a Hammer. HEY! Put down that Hammer. Put Down that Hamm...THUNK!
I got some idea that may be good for IDE products. It's about an invention called Named Arguments View (NAV) that specifically enhances IDE products. It will allow major programming languages such as C/C++, Java and Delphi/Pascal to take advantage of an important readability feature called "named arguments" with the assistance from IDE. I have done a survey for this idea among many developers (even the IBM Eclipse Team) and got overwhelmingly support, which encouraged me to seek adoption by major IDE makers like **. The term "named arguments" refers to an established and popular language feature adopted by some programming languages such as VB, Python, Ada, Common Lisp and C#. Other major languages such as Pascal, C/C++ and Java don't support it natively in their language specs. Typically, a C/C++ function call is written as such: result = memcpy(p2, p1, 10); This style of function call writing is dubbed "positional arguments". In contrast, writing a function call in the "named arguments" manner is like this: result = memcpy(Dest: p2, Src: p1, Bytes: 10); As you see, the "named arguments" style has much better program text readability than the positional. Better code readability makes a program easier to debug and easier to maintain. Unfortunately, for historical reasons, C/C++ as the de facto industrial standard and other major languages don't support it, making such highly readable code syntactically invalid. Over decades people are constantly proposing this new language feature to ANSI but to no avail, because ANSI doesn't want incompatibility problems with older compilers. So I thought: since one can't modify the C/C++ language spec but still wants the syntax sugar of named arguments, why not implement this feature on the IDE layer? Sitting between the programmer and the actual source code, the IDE can provide an alternative "view" - Named Arguments View that, when activated, lets the programmer view and edit source code that looks as if it were "named arguments supported". That is to say, all occurrences of function calls in the source code editor window immediately become like this: result = memcpy(Dest: p2, Src: p1, Bytes: 10); But remember this is only a "view" for the programmer to interact with; the actual source code is still saved to/loaded from disk and passed to compiler in the original C/C++ format: result = memcpy(p2, p1, 10); The IDE should also be able to automatically maintain the argument name tags ("Dest:", "Src:", "Bytes:") in the NAV mode: (1) Automatically provide an initial argument list "(Dest: , Src: , Bytes: )" when the function call is being composed; (2) Automatically sync argument name tags when the function declaration is updated. Argument name tags can be optionally painted in a special color/text formatting. That's all for the idea. Best Regards, Yao Ziyuan
Umm, I think what we overlooked here is the ability to actually create currency.
Any currency, from any part of the world could be fabricated in this mythical machine. Now with that in mind I doubt the effect this would have on the civilised world would be a good one.
You sir, are a fag
It was liver. Kidneys are very, very complicated. Whereas livers are merely very complicated. To produce functional kidney, you'd have to reproduce a complex three dimensional plumbing arrangement that's basically natures reverse-osmosis desalination plant. Liver, on the other hand, is more like a coffee filter that happens to also manufacture digestive fluids, and is relatively simple in comparison.
Space Family Robinson, Key Comics precursor to the famed (lame of the same name) TV show. Anyway the space station had a replicator made of two identical glass enclosures. Put an object in one enclosure, hit the button, and a dupe appeared in the other enclosure. W007! FREE SPIF!
Say hello to my little sig.
It's called a maker, and they are run by the mob. Duh.
Don't forget William Gibson's All Tomorrow's Parties", where they install nano-fabricators at every corner shop.
the article. Whenever I do read ther article; it points out how the poster didn't seem to read the article.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
for the coming IP wars overs this one. And we thought Gutemberg caused a ruckus with the printing press. It'll be a doosey(?). Maybe, finally, we'll git rid of Walmart, but it sure will put a lot of Chinese factory workers out of work. How much do you wanna bet that NOW the Chinese might become interested in IP just to protect those factories? When this becomes commonplace, we'll never have to worry about mandatory DRM and such. The FCC won't be able to stop me from building a real full spectrum scanner for instance. You can also bet that most governments will try to restrict access in order to protect their industries and themselves. Let's get this out of lab...fast. This could be the straw that breaks the monopolist's back. This is all probably redundant since I caught the story kind of late, and I haven't read the comments yet.
What?
The perfect woman is the one that got away. ;-)
Mine has a name, and it has to do sunrise... in spanish. The only problem is that the moment that you get, her she stops being perfect.
Ok... I am officially depressed. I guess I'll settle for a 7.
Cheers,
Adolfo
I corporation is just a piece oof paper. People working is what makes it go.
Now, why would people go to work when they can have anything they want for free? Anything.
Sure, you might have some CEOs in it for power, but it's useless when they have no employees.
"Of course, corporations would try to "fix" this situation with DRM-encoded recipes. Anyone can make a shoe (with the help of open source), but if you want the new spectacular Nike shoe recipe you have to spend money...the recipe components are downloaded to your nanofactory and boom, you have the "cool" shoe. "
except who will work for Nike to build this shoe?
nobody.
WIll there be an economy? yes, but it would be an economy the circles around the non-reproducable.
Stage performences, original art, crafting fantastic art.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"Tea, Earl Grey, hot".
Swiping a shape won't get you the object's interior. But if you spot a simple item with an appealing form, and it's made of a uniform substance all the way through - plaster, glass, plastic - then you can rip, mix, and burn it into a cheaper format, just like a videotaped movie or a ripped CD. It won't be as good as the original, but it might be good enough, and it will look great.
They're called Oasis. Oh wait. Sorry, that's just a cheap imitation of the fab four.
my bad
cLive ;-)
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
to making more fabs and get its materials from the surrounding enviroment.. now that would be neat.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
Reading the article, I fail to see how this device will produce better results than using clay to make interesting shapes.
Perhaps more detail is needed about the goop the machine uses as construction material, the level of detail possible, etc?
It's called "Matter Compiler" and plays a major role in Neal Stephensons yet-again-visionary novel "The Diamond Age" (That's the one he wrote after SnowCrash).
He quite precisely describes how a utopian post-cyberpunk society where such devices are common would look like.
BTW: The age describe in the novel is called the diamond age because of precisely that: diamond has replaced glass because it's substancially cheaper as it's just built from carbon molecules inside MCs.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Wired Magazine (which is normally otherwise techno-fluff) had a story in a recent issue about how Drexler's been pushed to the side with his theories about non-assemblers - I think it's justifiable.
There are those who justifiably challenge the norms of science, and come out winners, and I'm not saying Drexler isn't a smart or educated man, but just because you're flying in the face of the status quo will not mean that your ideas will prove correct (see perpetual motion machines).
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
(adapted from Gandhi)
or read about it in read William Gibson . He is almost Heinleinian in his ability to fantasize the fantasies first.
Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds. Robert Nesta Marley
...You're stealing the dinner right out of an actors mouth.'
When - probably not if - we as ordinary people have something that can create, or fabricate, common objects, clothes, food, and other smallish to medium sized things cheaply and easily, we're going to hear the paraphrased statement from those who previously sold them.
It's going to be a whole new court fought battle about blueprints-over-P2P and "illicit" sharing of big corp's trade "secrets".
Never mind the fact that by the time we have the Fabricator we won't need a big company to sell us all kinds of material goods, the people who run those companies will tell us that we must have them.
We shouldn't be allowed to make our own clothes en-mass cheaply and easily. We shouldn't be allowed to quickly whip up a gadget to keep ourselves amused while we ride the train or bus, replacing the one that was stolen by someone less fortunate than us.
That old argument about P2P file-sharing and cars?
`Sharing music is like if you copied your neighbour's car so that you both have one...'
We're going to do that, and the car companies will scream bloody murder about it.
Replicators, fabricators, 3D copy machines, and miniature nanobot driven-factories will come about one day - I hope in my lifetime - and when they do, we're going to have the same "molded" people who stand to lose 1 or more cents - corporate executives and major corporate share holders - whinging about them until their legislated into obscurity and we almost can't legally get one.
All it'll take to get these to the masses though is one machine, run by an altruistic man with the blueprints for the machine...
His name is Robert Paulsen...
The problem is how do you handle all the things it can build? Anyone would be able to create explosives, weapons, dangerous chemicals or even biological things! One thing you absolutely cannot do is rely on the system 'restricting' what you can build because thats just not going to work. so whats going to happen? anyone?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Check out the stuff Marshall Burns has done at Ennex. He wrote a book(now out of print) titled Automated Fabrication that outlined the state of the art in this area several years ago.
Forbidden Planet
In GOD we trust, all others we monitor.
This will make the current set of gun control laws usless, becaus all you wll need is the info to make any new weapon you need right on the spot. Waiting period? WHAT waiting period?!
Terrible is the fall of the mighty, for their pain is great to behold [Personal Quote(TM)]
Wikipedia is great, but it's not a search engine for the web.
"You can Wikipedia them on the Web, open source-style."
at least they should give credit. The idea of individual automated object fabrication has been around for several decades at least and was part of a series of influential science fiction stories. The stories even describe the different levels of technology: macroscopic automated manufacturing in the earlier versions, microscopic and atomic in later.
People at MIT didn't come up with the idea. In fact, they didn't come up with the hardware either: they took a bunch of off-the-shelf components (laser cutters, 3D scanner), put them together in the obvious and known way, and apparently are saying "look how smart we are". That is more a testament to the size of their bank account than to their smarts. Most people don't build those kinds of systems yet because they don't make economic sense yet. Once laser cutters and 3D scanners come down in price to the point of printers and digital cameras, then those combinations will be widely deployed.
When that happens, just be sure to give credit where credit is due: the original visionaries, and the people who created the technology that made it work: the engineers developing the laser cutters and the inventors coming up with organic semiconductors used in the ink jet printers used for custom electronics manufacturing.
It would be truly ironic for African villages to adopt these. Most of the objects produced by such a setup can be manufactured at a higher quality and lower cost by manual processes: woodworking, small manufacturing, etc. Those are local jobs that are supporting local economies.
Gadgetry is, in the end, about bundling up a whole lot of labor (the labor that went into making the gadgets) and transporting it somewhere else. We usually hope that a gadget saves more time than went into manufacturing it, but the reality is that it probably takes, in aggregate, far more hours and resources to create, say, a kitchen blender than the hours it saves. The only reason people end up making the tradeoff is because the labor that created it is much cheaper than the labor that it saves.
But developing nations need jobs and productivity, and the last thing they need is to pay a premium for "labor saving devices": not only don't they have the money, they also desparately need the employment and the experience that making goods for themselves creates.
One thing that always lacks with a system like this is the ability to fabricate complex materials like cloth, or strong objects like hammers, with anything approaching a useful speed or efficiency. These kind of items require highly specialized equipment which won't fit on a desktop, and has been mentioned ad-nauseum, atomic or molecular assembly takes forever at a useful scale.
Therefore, these printers will be quite useful for making circuit boards, small simple toys, replacement shirt buttons, etc., but not everything is practical or possible to make with that scale of production (naturally, barring some fantastic revolution in fabrication technology).
Producing glass or other high-grade optical materials in a system like this would be nearly impossible for the forseeable future, as would metallic items and magnetic materials - so hard and optical drives would not be possible.
The fabrication technique used would also introduce physical limitations on what could be made, whether in 'resolution' (minimum feature size) or strength (you can't make hammers or other tools from plastic).
This may be true for most of Bhuddism, but not for all.
In particular, the last few hundred years of the history of Tibet can be understood as a period of nearly continous warfare between temples for supreme power. As Tibet was a theocracy (a religious dictatorship), the temples were the most powerful institutions in the country. And all that power has had its usual corrupting influence, even on Bhuddism.
The Dalai Lama's school, the Gelupka (Yellow Hats), is the dominant faction today, but that may change. The competition between the temples is pretty vicious still; assassinations are common.
Ahah!
a)Smash the waste into its component atoms and separate by gravitic lensing (like a prism does for light).
or b) smash into component particles and build your own atoms (might be tricky to grab them if you can't know position and direction at same time).
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Dude, basic physics. Every bit of material has huge amounts of energy locked away in it. We call it "atomic energy." There is No shortage of energy at the atomic level, and we already know that. Just ask the 1940's residents of Hiroshima. Well, the ones you can find.
Um, perhaps you should go back and take a basic physics course.
1. Nanotechnology has nothing to do with what happens inside the nucleus. Nanotechnology is all about manipulating ions, particles that either have extra electrons, or are lacking electrons. We are not talking about machines that can pull atoms apart.
2. Fission is only a viable energy source if you have a large quantity of already unstable radioactive material. The number of elements that can be used to get energy via fission is very few (Uranium and Plutonium the most prominent.) And as for fusion, we are nowhere near being able to chuck a handful of garbage into a reactor and get energy by fission.
AMD and intel could make 100% pure silicon wafers. Which would mean no ddefects in processor runs and 100% yield. cheap chips, I know its a minor aplication, but still cool.
"brxref
And as for fusion, we are nowhere near being able to chuck a handful of garbage into a reactor and get energy by fission.
pfft... my DeLorean is doing just fine at that mate!!
"Honeeey I'm 127.0.0.1"
My fear is that many, many companies will rightfully feel threatened by this concept. It would allow us to make pretty much anything for the cost of the raw materials (very cheap). We'd quickly see things lize open source food, clothing, computers, everything. This would (understandably) destroy most industries as they currently stand. I hate to sound paranoid, but they will not let this happen.
"73% of quotes on the Internet are made up" -Ben Franklin
An army of T-800, ED-209, TF Super Battledroids. With batch instruction. While the replicator is churning out the killer robots, I am miles and miles away. :D
A time will come we can handle reality like a computer program, i.e. assemble reality out of the foundamental particles. But there has got to be serious moral issues around this concept. For once, infinite amounts of gold will be feasible. Will it mean an end to social problems like stealing and killing? are we gonna stop working at all? what about wars between nations?
Flash ads on slashdot, yes, I noticed the same thing. I think we all know why; mozilla can block advertising images via the servers domain name, but it doesn't appear to work with flash stuff. So OSDN is getting around your open source browser's ad blocking features. Ironic, eh?
Gold Pressed Latinum?
... and their impact (among other things), see http://www.crnano.org/
Having met them both (and read a fair amount of their work) I trust Drexler more than Smalley. For one thing, if you try to trace down one of Smalley's points you tend to be given additional combative claims, straw men, argument from authority, argument from incredulity, etc. whereas when you question Drexler he tends to drill down to math & physics, with numbers you can check.
I think the thing that marginalized Drexler was attempting to educate the public, and inviting a diverse range of people to "participate" in the exploration of the idea of nanotechnology, as a way to encourage discussion and foster education. At least, I think that was his goal. But opening the door this wide let a lot of nut cases in, all of whom wanted to be associated with him, and now he's terminally linked with them.
With friends like he has, you don't need enemies.
--MarkusQ
A revolution of affordable open source desktop manufacturing is on the way. There is already an alternative approach to rapid prototyping and manufacturing using inkjet technology.
Well before we are building things atom by atom, desktop manufacturing will be producing some stunning and swift changes in what we can produce for ourselves. The humble Inkjet, in a jag of hardware hacking is already spitting out solar cells, batteries, complete working gadgets, human tissue and computer circuitry,. A computer printing computer circuits simply from software instructions. That's only a stone's throw away from self replication.
There's more.
Researchers Hod Lipson and Jordan B. Pollack at Brandeis University have coupled inkjet technology and software to autonomously design and fabricate robots without human intervention.
or
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The software simulates a variety of rudimentary virtual robots. In an accelerated Darwinian contest of survival over hundreds of generations, the most successful robotic designs are then physically prototyped. Robots autonomously designing, testing and manufacturing robots.
The implications of open source desktop manufacturing are perhaps more in the questions inspired than in what is produced.
What will be the effect of open source hardware? What happens when a desktop peripheral as economical as your printer manufactures custom computer circuitry, solar cells and batteries as cheap as wallpaper? Or when distributors ship a product as software, with the end user supplying the raw material. No distribution costs and instant delivery of a physical item. Or when autonomous robots fitted with accelerating computational intelligence design and manufacture their own next generation?
And now another working approach to desktop manufacturing pops up. I say 3 years will see the revolution spill out of the manufacturing sector onto our desktops.
Thoughts on the Emergence of Computing Intelligence
Well, I'm sure there would be SERIOUS economic changes, but in order for this thing to function, it would need resources, which countries control.
This would either lead to war over resources, and a desire for people to control those resources. Think about that and what it leads to.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Finally, I'll have my Pro Tools...
....be a breach of someone's IP rights - on investions wuch as a "wheel manufatured using fabricating process".
You will be able to use a fabricator only after taking legal advice, that is until they are banned as "devices designed to faciliate IP theft".
Use it to make a cloning machine and a killing machine, then well, you know the rest...
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Forget molicules. I'd like a machine that could build stuff out of Lego Technics for me.
In 1959 Feynman described what it would take to build arbitrarily anything at the atomic level: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~feynman/plenty.html
A comic book called "Zero Assasin" (made in Australia) had these, they were developed using nanomachines to build anything. Companies could fax each other prototypes and presents. Then one day a company faxed a nuclear weapon to a competitor.... Boom! That would be fun.
99 bottles of beer in 175 characte
... at my blog http://www.arach.net.au/~ted/mydynes/ - i'd been looking for this gizmo for ages...
sorry for linkwhoring, but y'all may find it interesting...
-- ted russ http://www.arach.net.au/~ted/mydynes/ http://www.arach.net.au/~ted/myblogs/
You can just SAY "which begs for the question..."
Your position is like saying "I couldn't care less" and "I could care less" mean the same thing, just because people use them for the same thing.
That sort of semantic shift is acceptable at the word level. For example, disingenuous is shifting from false naivete to real naivete, despite what prescriptive linguists would prefer.
Still, when you have a whole grammatical construction there's a structure involved.
A similar tolerance was evinced towards "heels over head" turning into "head over heels." The result was extremely stupid. At some point you have to draw the line for continued comprehensibility within the language.
Stephenson envisions a desktop fabricator, called a "matter compiler", in his novel Diamond Age. Actually, it's about the size of a desk, or a filing cabinet, and it's connected to a "Feed": a pipeline system of some kind that feeds raw materials [carbon, hydrogen ...] from which atoms can be easily stripped and then rearranged into the materials needed to fabricate, for example, a book made of paper with a leather binding and gold leaf titles. The fun part is how Stephenson's imaginary matter-compiling technology is analagous to computer programming: a designer codes up the program, feeds it into the compiler, and, if there are no bugs, gets a chair, or a gun, or a book, or whatever fabulous object was coded.
Gun control is ALREADY dead, particularly in Scotland. Any moderatly handy individual with a welder and a metal lathe can make a Sten Gun in an afternoon. No plans required, just a rough idea of what you're trying to make.
Prehaps you've noticed the rush of crimes commited in the Isles with formerly non-functional "replica" firearms? Doesn't take much to make them work. Takes even less to build a full auto Sten Gun from scratch. Any size you want too.
As soon as the government declares any item banned, a cottage industry starts making them by the basketful. Modern CNC machines can punch them out by the cart load. And they do. Pretty much boners the gun control concept.
Which begs the question, whatnhell were they thinking of when they banned firearms in Britain? Public safety? Nuh uh.
the Desktop Fabricator
I prefer to call it a Santa Claus Machine.
---
"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh