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Staples To Offer 3D Printing Services
An anonymous reader writes "Mcor and Staples announced today a deal in which Mcor will supply their paper-based 3D printers to Staples Copy Centers worldwide. Staples customers will be able to upload their 3D model and pick up the printed object at their local copy center. The rollout starts in The Netherlands and Belgium in 1Q 2013 and then opens up in other countries."
a first-post robot?
What about printing Firearms (AR-15 Lowers) or objects copyright holders will sue over object? How will they decide what to approve for printing and what to deny?
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I'm gonna print me a woman!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
i would love to print myself a suit of armor and a scythe for halloween... would we be paying per job or paying per square inch?
Will printing my own easy button be accompanied by the "that was easy" voice-over?
- Nec Impar Pluribus, or so I'm told.
I'm gonna print me a woman!
I'm curious how Staples is going to address copyright restrictions in the (highly-litigious) USA. Imagine printing the likeness of someone and being fined for reproducing their image without consent.
Which may be why they're starting out in Europe (it's okay though - it's only the 2nd or 3rd time europe has something cool released before the USA).
- Nec Impar Pluribus, or so I'm told.
I'm going to upload a bunch of dildos and anal beads, just to see the looks on their faces when I pick them up.
It's at best, a shape. If I print something that looks like a phone but it's made of paper, it's not a phone, it's not that object. It's a shape. Just like taking a picture of a phone doesn't make that picture a phone, nor do we call that picture a phone.
What will staples do on the up sell site of this?
staples easy tech is all about selling and not that much on the tech site.
I think I'll print a 3D printer.
Cashier hands customer small object warm off the 3D printer.
"That will be $49.95 sir"
Customer points object at cashier: BANG
Walks out of store muttering: "That was easy!"
at some point in the next 50 years, someone will invent a quantum printer that prints objects based on quantum configuration. in this case, the printed object would be an exact copy of the object it is copying.... this would be an amazing feat for the world. why? because you can print whatever you want out of whatever you have. you could turn a brick of lead into a fully working ibook. the benefit of this is that everything would cost the same.
Staples: A Great Place To Buy Guns!
A 3D printer that uses paper? They need to seriously re-consider that I think. I'll stick with my Makerbot Replicator.
Imagine if we could print parts of a copy machine to make a better copy machine. Then each xerox machine could print out parts and become bigger and stronger. So technically we can pack a very small rudimentary xerox machine in a rocket, blast it to some distant planet and it would make increasingly more sophisticated copy machines and eventually build a rocket and make miniature xerox machines and blast them other planets!
But what about energy? What about material? Come on, it is all in the software. The little rudimentary machine would print out small powerplants and raw material factories too.
But what material could you use in a planet you have never been to? Well, let us just use the most abundant material like carbon and water and these machines would make small variations in the copies they make. Whichever variation uses the available materials better, would make more copies of itself. So we can build redundancy into the process. Let these machines fight among themselves and the ones most suitable to each plant will evolve bigger and better.
All we need to do is provide some kind of insatiable appetite to make more copies of itself deeply into the kernel of these machines. That should be enough.
Oh, wait. It is us. Folks, we are the end result of those damned 3D printing machines envisaged by some distant civilization! OMG, you did it, didn't you, God?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I am not just writing exciting to say Good Job to Staples but this will be a huge step forward for more than all the tinkerers out there. This is a product that reaches out and touches my heart. I don't know too many people around me who could use this or could even use this. But if Staples stays the course they will develop their own market. I can see a situation where general public use first will be vanity items such as a personalized bobble head but then one day someone will need a replacement part and a company will say "Go to your local staples and pick it up, it should be ready in 45 minute."
A simple example of this would be my Dyson vacuum(I love it) had a dumb little part die and they replaced it without hesitation. I called on Saturday and it came today. But that required my house be dirty for a week and that Dyson warehouse the part, package the part, and ship the part. Wouldn't it have been better if they had just printed up the part locally on demand? Not to mention that as they learn that some part will regularly fail they can instantly "ship" a redesigned part without having to dispose of or guiltily ship the lesser version.
So I hope that someone installs a beer pipeline to the Staples executive who came up with this brilliant idea.
ROFL
hahahaha
Sweet! I'm going to print up a Staples store.
"You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein
Does this mean Staples can print me the perfect woman of my dreams?
If your "woman" is putting something, anything IN your "pee hole" you are doing it wrong.
semi-ironic captcha: gobblers
When I worked at Walgreens from 2007-2010, the amount of printing the photo department did dropped sharply because the economy was worsening and because people were moving most of their photo viewing onto smartphones. Nowadays, 3D printing would make much better use of the photo department space than 2D printing and it would substitute many of the cheap toys and tools on the middle aisle.
What's especially intriguing is that 3D printing could substitute all forms of 2D printing. Instead of selling paper and inkjet cartridge refills, the store could sell powdered plastic for home 3D printers. Instead of printing pictures in store, the store could print objects that are bigger, better, and made from more materials than home 3D printers can use. In addition to sending out orders for custom mugs and T-shirts, the store could send out orders for the highest quality 3D printed items possible.
One problem is that there isn't really a consumer-level killer app for 3D printing yet. It needs somebody like Steve Jobs to make 3D printing into something nobody can do without.
The article leads me to believe they are 3d printers using paper. That seriously limits the possibilities of what you can print, but at least nobody will (hopefully) be making working paper guns with it. If they would switch to some type of plastic I could see this having a lot more uses.
http://interserver.net/
I see a lot talk about firearms when 3d printing discussions start, but my first thought was to print some new frames for my glasses. these things can cost hundreds of dollars, break easily, only consist of a few grams of plastic. I could have a different pair for every day of the year...
It's only a model.