There is an interesting interview with Neil Gershenfeld, the director of MIT's center for bits and atoms - they have been playing with similar 'replicators' and setting up fabrication labs (fablabs!) in middle-tech countries with interesting results. He sees the mainstream availabilty (ok - once cost comes down a bit) of manufacturing processes as the beginning of a paradigm shift similar to the move of mainframe computing to the desktop. He also discusses their use of open-source hardware and schematics in the fablabs.
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There is an interesting interview with Neil Gershenfeld, the director of MIT's center for bits and atoms - they have been playing with similar 'replicators' and setting up fabrication labs (fablabs!) in middle-tech countries with interesting results. He sees the mainstream availabilty (ok - once cost comes down a bit) of manufacturing processes as the beginning of a paradigm shift similar to the move of mainframe computing to the desktop. He also discusses their use of open-source hardware and schematics in the fablabs.