Category Archives: News
Industry Leaders Discuss Consumer 3D Printing Market [Video]
Dale Dougherty, co-founder of O’Reilly Media, hosted a panel on consumer 3D printing at the MIT/Stanford VLAB in April.
3D Printing is poised to become a part of our daily lives, allowing consumers to make things in a new era of mass customization. Once an expensive technology used by engineers, 3D printers today print car bodies, medical and dental prosthetics, high-fashion shoes and much more. Layer by layer, 3D printers deposit material to build up one-of-a-kind products, even with complex internal shapes.
Virtual marketplaces, cheaper printers and cloud-based consumer software are transforming the 3D Printing ecosystem, bringing the technology within the reach of everyone. With a current market size of $1.3 billion, the 3D printing industry is set to explode to $3.1 billion by 2016, according to industry consulting firm Wohlers Associates.
Join us and our industry leading panelists to understand business models and see the technology in action.
Shapeways CEO Peter Weijmarshausen joins leaders from 3D Systems, Autodesk, and London College of Fashion, and MAKE Magazine in the video below.
Nano-Vaccines: 3D Printing Small to Fight Large-Scale Epidemics
Vaccines are a controversial topic today, but there is no doubt they have had a major impact on society by eradicating major diseases in the past. Scientists are continuing to research ways to make vaccines more effective.
North Carolina-based Liquidia Technologies is innovating on the manufacturing of vaccines. By utilizing 3D printing and nano-technology, Liquidia believes they can mass-produce more effective vaccines at a lower cost.
Applying nanoparticle fabrication techniques to vaccine production could dramatically cut their cost per dose. Joseph DeSimone and his spin out Liquidia, presented their nano-production process for vaccines at the American Chemical Society annual meeting in San Diego, US, and hope that their work will improve immunisation rates in the developing world.
DeSimone has done a lot of work on the mass production of nanoparticles using nanolithography – materials are moulded and then transferred to films in a streamlined, reel to reel, process. ‘We say we’re harnessing the power of the precision and uniformity of the microelectronics industry for making vaccines and medicines,’ he explains. And because this is a dry moulding technology, with no concerns about partitioning, DeSimone adds, ‘you can access compositions you couldn’t access before’.
Via RSC.
‘We say we’re harnessing the power of the precision and uniformity of the microelectronics industry for making vaccines and medicines,’ DiSimone explains.
Liquidia now has one vaccine in Phase I clinical trials and several others in development.
The video below provides an overview of Liquidia’s PRINT platform.
Vaccines research lab photo by Novartis AG used under Creative Commons License.
Objet Launches 3D Printing Joint Venture in Japan
Objet announced the establishment of Objet Japan KK, a new joint venture formed together with the 3D Printer division of Fasotec Co. Ltd, Objet’s longstanding distributor in the region.
From the press release:
The new entity is established in line with Objet’s global strategy to offer local support in key strategic markets, meeting the increasingly intricate requirements due to complexity of product portfolio and adapting to suit unique local conditions. Objet holds majority of ownership share of the new entity.
Objet has been providing the Japanese market cutting-edge 3D printing technology since 2003. Demand for the latest technology and advanced applications have been growing steadily over the years, and are expected to continue. Driven by the advanced requests, the new entity is established to be closer to the market for better understanding of specifications and to keep with the pace of the fast-changing Japanese market. Combining the experience of market knowledge and industry best-practices, Objet Japan is committed to satisfy both partners and customers on both products and services.
We profiled the merger between Stratasys and Objet in April, and showcased Objet’s 3D printed Fenway Park in May.
Via MarketWatch.
Akihabara photo by Danny Choo used under Creative Commons license.
Forbes: 3D Printing Will Cause Real Wages to Rise in Global Economy
Will 3D printing be a disruptive change? Sure, but Forbes believes that we may be surprised by the result.
Contributor Tim Worstall poses an interesting counterpoint to some common conclusions about the impact of 3D printing on the global labor market.
First, Mr. Worstall suggests that there will be an experience curve for 3D printing – it will get cheaper over time to produce similar goods.
Which is, as we know, pretty much the way that manufacturing works. Things get designed, dreamt up, and they start out expensive. As we get better at doing whatever it is then prices start to drop: the clearest examples are in the computing and telecoms industries in recent years. Those examples are almost too tedious to recount in fact, they’ve been used so often.
3D printing will go through much the same process and it’s easy enough to see a time in which one has such a printer just as much as one has a paper printer. Need something, call up the part design over the web, pay a buck or two perhaps (and no doubt there will be open sourcers as well) and print out whatever it is that you wanted.
Now the key question is whether this will lead to an elimination in manual labor. As an example, we recently called the impact of 3D printing on the Indian labor market ”mind-boggling” because labor can be reduced dramatically or replaced by additive manufacturing.
But let us go to the extreme and assume that they are cheaper: so much so that manufacturing really does disappear. What does that do to wages? Yup, a fall in the costs of things is equal to, is by definition the equivalent of, a rise in real wages. So if 3D printers do take off it can only be because, by definition, they make us all richer.
Interesting view point, and one that seems to support the belief that 3D printing will be a $5 billion industry by 2020.
Via Forbes.
Factory photo by Just Add Light used under Creative Commons license.
Top 3D Printing Headlines from Last Week: Legs, Bikinis, Disney World
A roundup of the top news On 3D Printing brought you from May 7 to May 13.
Monday, May 7
- 3D Printed Legs: Giving Amputees the Power of Personal Expression
- Impact of 3D Printing on Indian Labor Market “Mind-Boggling” [Opinion]
Tuesday, May 8
- Stratasys Announces Mojo: Lowest-Price Professional-Grade 3D Printer
- 3D Systems Acquires FreshFiber for 3D Printed Electronics Accessories
Wednesday, May 9
Thursday, May 10
- MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis is 3D Printing’s First Celebrity
- 3D Printed Curves: How the N12 Bikini Fits Your Body Perfectly
Friday, May 11
