Chris Anderson, visionary author and former editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, sees a future where 3D printing drives the next industrial revolution. “It will be bigger than the Web,” Anderson predicts.

Speaking at a Culturazzi event where he was also signing copies of his new book, Anderson drew analogies from the Spinning Jenny and today’s 3D printers. He also noted how the entire desktop publication industry eventually boiled down to one icon on a computer called “Print.” The next revolution will simplify to one icon: “Make.”

Anderson is so convinced of this future that he left his post as editor-in-chief of Wired to become a pioneer of 3D printing. We are excited to see what he comes up with!

Of course, 3D printers were on hand – along with wine – to inspire the Culturazzi guests. In the photo above, a Cubify printer shows off how simple 3D printing has become.

Full story via ZDNet.

Photos by Tom Foremski.

MarketWatch blogger T.S. Troth recently published an article which contemplated the Singularity as the next great industrial revolution. And what technology was called out as the bellwether for the Singularity? 3D printing, of course.

Enter, the Singularity. Ray Kurzweil, who brought this term into the lexicon, defines the Singularity as a time when machine intelligence will reach such a level as to replace human engineers with machines smart enough to make other machines.  Many dispute the exact timing of the Singularity’s arrival, but it is coming. The bellwether technology and harbinger of the Singularity’s arrival, as well as the canary in the coal mine for the Ricardian comparative advantages reached by way of cheap labor, is 3D Printing.

From ashtrays to airplanes, 3D Printing is the game-changing technology that will bring manufacturing home to U.S. shores after oh-so-many (painful) years abroad. No more will manufacturing be held hostage by totalitarian, suppressive regimes capable of paying their workers a pittance.

I’m assuming the vast majority of MarketWatch’s readership already knows precisely what 3D Printing is, but for the minority who do not, 3D Printing is, as defined by Wikipedia, “a process of making three dimensional solid objects from a digital model.” And, to borrow a turn of phrase from the kids, it is freaking rad!

Read Troth’s full essay on the Singularity.

The Economist has published an in-depth special report on 3D printing and the macro-economic impact this technology will have on our global supply chain. The introduction of this report reads:

The first industrial revolution began in Britain in the late 18th century, with the mechanisation of the textile industry. Tasks previously done laboriously by hand in hundreds of weavers’ cottages were brought together in a single cotton mill, and the factory was born. The second industrial revolution came in the early 20th century, when Henry Ford mastered the moving assembly line and ushered in the age of mass production. The first two industrial revolutions made people richer and more urban. Now a third revolution is under way. Manufacturing is going digital. As this week’s special report argues, this could change not just business, but much else besides.

The report features include:

• A third industrial revolution
• Back to making stuff
• The boomerang effect
• Forging ahead
• Solid print
• Layer by layer
• All together now
• Making the future

Be sure to read all of this great analysis by The Economist.

Fab Lab: Barcelona and Smart Cities: are we seeing societal change by way of democratization of manufacturing?

In an interview with Tomás Diez, director of the Fab Lab Barcelona project, the question was posed:

How can cities solve the need of providing more and more diverse services, in a scenario of cutting budgets, while taking advantage of the opportunities that “fabbing” bring to us? At the Fab City… how do you think that having a neighborhood fab lab would change people’s lives?

The response was quite profound:

This proposal consists on a fab city made up of an interconnected community of neighborhood fab labs. The venues’ goals would be to encourage entrepreneurship and interest in innovation that have already been present in Barcelona throughout centuries. As they see it, bringing factories back to cites will lead us through a new industrial revolution where production methods and social bonds will be transformed.

Read more in the full interview.

Barcelona image used under Creative Commons from Moyan_Brenn.