Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Researchers Moot "Teleportation" Via Destructive 3D Printing

Posted by timothy on from the don't-tell-the-mpaa dept.

ErnieKey writes Researchers from German-based Hasso Plattner Institute have come up with a process that may make teleportation a reality — at least in some respects. Their 'Scotty' device utilizes destructive scanning, encryption, and 3D printing to destroy the original object so that only the received, new object exists in that form, pretty much 'teleporting' the object from point A to point B. Scotty is based on an off-the-shelf 3D printer modified with a 3-axis milling machine, camera, and microcontroller for encryption, using Raspberry Pi and Arduino technologies." This sounds like an interesting idea, but mostly as an art project illustrating the dangers of DRM. Can you think of an instance where you would actually want the capabilities this machine claims to offer?

31 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. Useless Art Project by lbenes · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why was this posted? It's not good art and has no real life applications.

    1. Re:Useless Art Project by Threni · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The rites of spring by stravinsky has no "real life applications" other than the usual art stuff. You know, making life bearable in a pointless, hateful world where the best thing you can say about it is that you're going to die eventually, and beyond that everything in the universe is going to ultimately run out of energy and go dark and cold for ever and ever and ever. I mean, you're right; it would have been better had it improved the speed of an internet search or something practical like that, but sadly, no. Just pointless art.

    2. Re:Useless Art Project by theshowmecanuck · · Score: 2

      This idea has been used in several scifi and fantasy stories/books for how to transport people. In a few they expand a bit on the possible moral conundrums this can cause. This is just an applied science version of the same thing. Would you blast a post about a scifi story that this kind of discussion? Scifi is near and dear to most slashdot readers.

      --
      -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
  2. Prototyping security? by The+Rizz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The only situations I can see this having any use in is some sort of security model where you make an object that for some security reason isn't supposed to exist in more than one place. I can see this for the whole "only this key can open the briefcase with the documents/money/etc." situation, for example.

    1. Re:Prototyping security? by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 2

      Only problem with that is: if you can replicate an object with this contraption, you can replicate the object using a similar contraption that doesn't contain the destructive/encryption element. So if the item ever leaves a secured area, anyone can replicate it.

      So yeah; it could be used to send a key to a remote location... but you could just keep the plan for the key in an encrypted file and send that to whoever you want -- as you still can in this situation (anyone with the file and the key can replicate the item at any point in time).

    2. Re:Prototyping security? by LifesABeach · · Score: 4, Insightful

      My thought was, "what could possibly go wrong?" and then the idea formed, "the recieving maching broke half way through the process."

    3. Re:Prototyping security? by horm · · Score: 2

      Luckily, the object is stored in the transporter buffer, and with a little sci-fi magic we can reconstruct the object and save the day minutes before the episode ends.

    4. Re:Prototyping security? by fractoid · · Score: 3, Funny

      Hint: Don't put your p-

      I thought this post was going somewhere much more worrying than "et hamster".

      --
      Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
  3. Could be useful in certain rare cases by c0d3g33k · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Can you think of an instance where you would actually want the capabilities this machine claims to offer?

    In situations where moving the original object physically to its destination is difficult or cost prohibitive, and there is no further need of the original at the source (maybe it only has utility at the destination). The most obvious case would be from Earth to space, either to a location in orbit, or eventually another planet.

    1. Re:Could be useful in certain rare cases by aardvarkjoe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In situations where moving the original object physically to its destination is difficult or cost prohibitive, and there is no further need of the original at the source (maybe it only has utility at the destination). The most obvious case would be from Earth to space, either to a location in orbit, or eventually another planet.

      I would think that a trash can next to the scanner would probably do this particular job just as well.

      --

      How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
    2. Re:Could be useful in certain rare cases by aardvarkjoe · · Score: 2

      Ah, I get it now .. the destruction of the original is apparently more of a side effect than a feature of this device.

      --

      How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
  4. Simpson's did it!!! by the_skywise · · Score: 3, Informative

    That was an Outer Limits episode...

    "BALANCE THE EQUATION!!!!"
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

    1. Re:Simpson's did it!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Once you release your false sense of personal identity, using a device like this (once the technology is advanced enough to work for people) to quickly travel long distances makes perfect sense.

      It is surprising how many atheists would reject this, despite the fact that most of them would swear up and down that there is no such thing as a soul, and that consciousness (if it is anything at all) is just a general phenomenon (like gravity) that is not particular to an individual. So, if a person teleports in this way, an atheist should be the first to assert that nobody died and that nothing was lost.

      Oh well. Illusion is a hard thing to overcome.

    2. Re:Simpson's did it!!! by dala1 · · Score: 2

      What exactly is it that you think atheists believe? Atheism is when you lack a belief in God, nothing to do with souls or consciousness or personal identity. And none of these things have anything to do with this crude take on 'teleportation'.

      Regardless of what happens on the other end of the machine, if you physically destroy the body of a living thing then it will die. It will experience exactly the same things that it would if you killed it and then did not make a copy.

  5. Yes by Jaime2 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Their method of destructive scanning allows for internal detail to be accurately reproduced. They aren't destroying it for the fun of it, they're destroying it to see it's internal structure. The DRM-like behavior is just a side-effect.

    1. Re:Yes by Lab+Rat+Jason · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It depresses me that it took this long for someone to come up with a sensible answer... I read the article and immediately thought of pump impellers, but everyone above here is still stuck on derezzing.

      --
      Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
    2. Re:Yes by Bite+The+Pillow · · Score: 2

      And when money for non-destructive probing makes this concern irrelevant?

      Or the corollary, when the internal structure cannot be replicated by the scanner? And perhaps it's not a corollary, because then you damaged the original.

      The printer would need to be capable of printing whatever the scanner finds, and non-destructive methods incapable of the same discovery. I find this perhaps implausible for now.

  6. James Patrick Kelly's "Think Like A Dinosaur" by magusxxx · · Score: 2

    it was made into an episode of The Outer Limits. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... The idea was that a human could be teleported to another planet. After the "copy" arrived the original would be destroyed.

    --
    Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
  7. moot teleportation? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    First moot retires, and now they want to destructively teleport him?

  8. Yes by Harlequin80 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Any situation where you don't have the details of what is inside the object but you want them.

    Take a step away from the "teleportation" aspect and put the sender and receiver right next to each other. One disassembles the item while the other recreates it. At the end of the process you have the replacement item to stick back into where ever you took it from AND a scan of all the layers inside allowing you to produce more should you so desire.

  9. Isn't that how the transporter works? by hawguy · · Score: 2

    Isn't that exactly how the transporter works? Surely they don't actually disassemble the body atom-by-atom, convert it to energy, then stream it to the remote site.

    I figured they used a high-resolution scanner to scan the body, then send an energy beam to the remote site to reconstruct an exact replica of the person being transported. After the copy is complete, the original body is no longer needed and is disintegrated.

    1. Re:Isn't that how the transporter works? by MondoGordo · · Score: 2

      Actually no the ST transporter converts the object into an energy pattern, beams the energy to a remote location and erases the pattern after the object is re-integrated into solid matter at the remote location. ... the object only ever exists as matter in one place at a time. which is why people are lost in transporter accidents.

    2. Re:Isn't that how the transporter works? by Megahard · · Score: 4, Funny

      No, the transporter works by first filming with the actor, then without the actor, and combining the shots post-production with added glitter.

      --
      I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
  10. this is why teleportation never made sense by circletimessquare · · Score: 3, Insightful

    it's duplication

    which is great!

    but why destroy the original? just to call it teleportation? seems ridiculous

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  11. "To Be" by roc97007 · · Score: 2

    I think I've heard this story before.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  12. Hmmmm by fyngyrz · · Score: 4, Funny

    Can you think of an instance where you would actually want the capabilities this machine claims to offer?

    Yes. Yes, I can. Let's use this as the new transport mechanism for congresspersons. What a problem-solver!

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  13. The obvious by JThundley · · Score: 2

    The only situation I can think of is doing this with people. Obviously the technology isn't there yet. I know for a fact that the world doesn't need any more of me running around in it. You're welcome world!

  14. I can just see it now ... by ubrgeek · · Score: 2

    Spock: Captain, I'm receiving an odd error message from the 3D printer transporter ...
    Kirk: What's the error message say?
    Spoke: It says, 'PC load letter.'
    Kirk: PC load letter! What the fuck does that mean???

    --
    Bark less. Wag more.
  15. shredder fax by millette · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Is attaching a FAX to a paper shredder considered prior art?

  16. Re:That's not Teleportation! by gl4ss · · Score: 2

    well that would be copying at a different place.. and then what would stop you from making two copies? making it a copying process and not teleportation.

    if you want to say that there isn't likely to be real teleportation then duh... it's just magic scifi anyways. if you were to convert the state of the object into information then you would need to have artificial limitations to stop you from making two copies once you have the information.

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  17. It only works when it isn't by clovis · · Score: 2

    This thing only duplicates items that were originally made by a 3D printer that uses that same material.
    That is to say, I don't want a teleported camshaft that is printed with a 3D printer that uses chocolate for the printing material.
    Well actually I do want that, but I would not put it in an engine.

    Nor do I see how something made of materials that aren't available as 3D printer matrix materials could be teleported.