One of the things that I’ve noticed with technology is that it changes gradually. Technology builds upon existing technology and improves on it. Very rarely – if ever at all, has there been an instance where I’m totally taken aback by an advance in technology. Like a biological evolution, it is very gradual. After all, when man lost his tail, it’s not like we (as in our ancestors, obviously not us!) woke up one morning to find a pile of tails on the ground!
There has been an innovation that has totally caught me by surprise, and quite honestly, the more that I am exposed to this technology, the more amazed I am. I believe that we are the cusp of an innovation that will – without being overly dramatic – change the course of our society.
What I refer to is a new technology called 3D Printing. Now, I think that this term is actually misleading and it does this a great disservice. When I first read the article headline, I was thoroughly unimpressed enough that I didn’t even bother reading through to the body. In my mind, I was thinking that this is a cute way that we can print our bar charts and pictures of kitties that it would be an advance that has some benefit, but really didn’t have any meat and potatoes to speak off.
However, the next day, I saw another article and I was curious enough to read through the article and what I read just amazed me. This technology is more about creating solid 3 dimensional objects out a digital specification of an object. Before I continued to read through, I thought that this was interesting, but not yet beneficial as I imagined that the “printer” was essentially creating a play-doh’ish kind of object that looks like the original.
Once again, I was wrong. There are many videos of this technology on YouTube. The one video that I saw was that they took a normal metal wrench and had it scanned in 3 dimensions. They then “printed” this wrench and then they demonstrated that the item was functional – they took this wrench and they tightened a bolt using it.
The latest “wow” factor is another article that I read recently was that in the UK, they used this technology to design and build components for a small kit-sized airplane. When all of the parts where completed, they were snapped together without using any tools, and the plane can not only fly but it can fly up to speeds of 100mph. For those interested, the link for the article is http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2023469/Aeroplane-created-using-3D-printer-world-Scientists-create-aircraft-100mph-max-speed.html.
This is mind-boggling technology. I’m sure that it is very expensive and time-consuming, but in its infancy, most technology is.
The ability to prototype products will be phenomenal. This will allow designers and production staff to be able make quick changes and tweaks to the design of their products.
This technology will not just be rainbows and butterflies though; there will be numerous legal issues. For example, in the case of the wrench – if I purchase the wrench, I don’t have the right to be able to make a copy of it. The company that created the wrench spent numerous hours and dollars in product development and as such, this will be a real concern.
Where this would be an incredible technology is in the health-care sector. Can you imagine being able to go to the dentist’s in the future and if you need a partial denture, they can scan your teeth and produce an EXACT replica of each tooth? I’m sure that having the denture being exactly the same will make this so much easier. What about if someone needed to have their leg amputated? At least an exact replica of the existing let could be made and it should be so much easier to adapt.
We’re well on our way to the age of Star Trek and I anxiously wait for my replicator!
