Coming Soon - Your own replicator?

[First of Two]

Oh, boy

Now engineers are working on a device capable of churning out a host of household items and gadgets, including kitchenware, cameras and even small musical instruments.

Mr Bowyer revealed the RepRap machine could become a reality within four years and his aim is to make it a universal feature of the home.

He said his invention - about the size of a refrigerator, could render many forms of traditional manufacturing obsolete.

"Four hundred years ago almost every human being was employed in agriculture, and now it’s only a couple of per cent," he said. "I suspect the same thing is going to happen to manufacturing." Rapid prototype machines work by fusing together layers of plastic according to a blueprint fed into the computer.

Mr Bowyer’s machine would also be able to incorporate simple metal components and circuits out of an alloy that melts at low temperatures.

The machines could, for instance, make complete sets of coloured and decorated plastic plates, dishes and bowls.

The objects they produce would measure no more than 12 inches in length, width and height. Larger items could be made by clipping together smaller manufactured parts.

Glass items, complex parts such as microchips, and anything exposed to intense heat - such as a toaster - could not be directly assembled.

Components the machine is unable to make could easily be added. A basic digital camera could be made with the lens and computer chip bought separately and slotted in later. Mr Bowyer plans to make the 3D designs and computer code needed for an existing machine to make one of his devices freely available on the internet.

BWA-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa!

Now. All we need is orbital solar power to run these things at no cost, and mined asteroids to provide the bulk materials, and poverty can be eliminated forever.

I love science.

[Don Mappin]

Yea, but where's my flying car?

[Tobian]

Well no, what we need is for it to synthesize protein structures, which is largelly beyond this device by the sounds of it. It could be interesting to see if it could build semiconductor devices on multiple layers.. imagine a cubic CPU - a few million times the processing power

[black campbellq]

Yea, but where's my flying car?

LOL...so, ah, what would you do for the flying car..? (Now will he get the reference..?)

[Cochrane]

Ah, but what about the jobs ?

[Lt.Khrys Antos]

A whole new generation of workers will be educated to maintain the machines...

I just got a chill down my spine...

[Tobian]

Guys stop panicking just yet 1) it's vapourare 2) err someone has to still design the things it makes!!!

New tools only ever create greater posibilities. Do computers make Pixar great artists, Story tellers and win the oscars for them... NO, they simply let them do something that could never be done a few years ago.

maybe I'm just sounding like some kind of neo-preraphealite, but it might allow people to make things for the sake of beauty, rather than because it's cheap.. because mass produced goods will become irrelevant Craft will sell once more. Short of a replicator nothing can recreate the subtleties, beauty and complexities of handmade objects.

[Cochrane]

I actually have no problem with old jobs becoming obsolete and being replaced by new jobs. Where more technology is given, more productiveness is required.

[REG]

I actually have no problem with old jobs becoming obsolete and being replaced by new jobs. Where more technology is given, more productiveness is required.

Yeah, but would you hire 35-year-old guy or a 20-year-old guy with the same level of training? How about a 55-year-old guy who lost his job because a pineapple plantation is shutting down and relocating to a much cheaper labor outside of the country? Chances are replicator are more likely to be made in Taiwan than in the USA.

Old jobs are what old people knows.

[Phoenix]

I actually have no problem with old jobs becoming obsolete and being replaced by new jobs. Where more technology is given, more productiveness is required.

As long as there are new jobs to be had. Also, you've never been layed of from an old job have you?

[Tobian]

Reg, you're right to a point, but what if this machine makes cheap consumer products imported from the far east obsolete?! There's no cheaper worker than a few hundred dollar box plugged into the mains supply churning out consumer items at a rapid speed! So it's more likelly that market could suffer more than the west, where manufacturing is a much smaller constituent component.

[Doug Burke]

LOL...so, ah, what would you do for the flying car..? (Now will he get the reference..?)

<a href="http://www.viewaskew.com/tv/leno/flyingcar.html">It’s times like this it occurs to me that we were lied to by “The Jetsons”.</a>

[Tobian]

I think I'd be amazed if there was a person on the internet that hasn't seen that yet!

[REG]

Reg, you're right to a point, but what if this machine makes cheap consumer products imported from the far east obsolete?! There's no cheaper worker than a few hundred dollar box plugged into the mains supply churning out consumer items at a rapid speed! So it's more likelly that market could suffer more than the west, where manufacturing is a much smaller constituent component.

It's both good and bad.

I prefer Kona coffee beans grown and harvested in Kona, Hawaii, whereas I don't really care if the oranges or orange juice are from Florida (Floridians might).

Besides, the inventor only has to make one large replicator replicating small consumer-size and commercial replicators. So where's the job in manufacturing replicators? It may be in the dealership, where you may have to haggle for the purchase while the dealer work on commissions. Speaking of purchase, where are you getting your income? The job will now be limited to the service industries.

At least you have time to design and publish your own game. You just hope you do good enough to avoid Don Mappin's List of Crap-tacular Game. But I'm guessing that professional quality or not, it's not like you can make a living off of your dream. After all, one product of yours is enough to be mass-replicated.

Them Copyright Law and Berne Convention are pretty much toilet paper material.

Anyhoo, just want to see what kind of repercussion it may bring, despite the good intention behind it.

P.S. As a Filipino-American, I don't like to see the Far East suffer more than they have to, now that area is fast becoming a haven for Al Qaeda and their sympathizers. Remember, terrorists prey on the instability of the society. The replicator must be beneficial to every good men and women of this planet.

[Tobian]

Right now this isn't a real Replicator (TM) So we don't have to panic just yet! It doesn't sound like it could Replicate (TM) your coffee beans or orange juice for that matter.

This is a very real prospect of what the future will be like. It's funny how we can sit back and watch people be amazed and shocked, on Startrek, by the apparent ease and simplicity of their lifestyle, when they come from 'primative' roots. We can sit back and say to ourselves 'don't be so stupid' when they worry about the change it could bring, but it's something else when we are on the other side of the glass, and we have to face the cold stark reality of the situation.

A Phaser blasting someone so you don't have to see blood is a marvelous invention for the TV censors, but in reality how would someone react to being told a relative was vapourised and there's no body to bury, to prove that they are dead to themselves, to whitness. Not everyone likes too, but the the point is some people need too...

Almost everything in Startrek would have a huge impact on society in both good and bad ways. The tool that could end hunger, starvation and shortages in Africa wouldlead to economic collapse in the west.

Advanced technology would also lead to complacency. if every climber had a gravity harness that was safe and robust, then would we need mountain rescue. but then what happens when.....

The Truth is everything changes and nothing remains the same. We can't hope to hold on to the same economic and social model forever. All civilisations change or die, because civilisation brings invention, invention brings change and change spells the doom of civilisation, it's a cycle and we just have to hang on for the ride.

Compare the social economy, government structure and technology of 200 years ago, 1000 years ago, 2000 years ago... It's changed beyond all comprehension, and ever since the 20th century it's changed faster than it ever has before! Watch out, I sense a 'revolution' coming about, be it an industrial or a social one!