from the P2P-4-3D dept.
Matthew Gream writes "Slashdot records and comments upon a presentation, "Napster Fabbing: Internet Delivery of Physical Products" about what is 'in principle' an early stage of nano-tech based replication." The page links to two more papers on Atoms from Bits: The Digital Revolution in Manufacturing and The Origins and Direction of the Fabricator Revolution. The Slashdot discussion includes perceptive comments from some people with experience in the field, as well as "it won't work" doubters and true believers. Read More for Matthew's comments. My vision of the future is that the internet becomes a global repository for "designs," with producers (creative designers) and consumers (users with replicators) on the periphery. I would expect to see a market in designs, powerful design and simulation tools, and so on – all gibsonesque and stephensonesque. 3D printers have always seemed like an "early stage" "in principle" technology towards atomic level manufacturing and "replication", in the same way that the history of computing includes the abacus, the analytical engine, and other related machines and processes. The conceptual picture is roughly clear, but it will be fascinating to see it play out. I remember a comment by a Bell Labs researcher, along the lines of "we knew that the internet was coming, but we didn't know that it was going to be the internet". Perhaps the post-industrial society will proceed through multiple stages, and although we are in the early throes of it, the "high point" will come when a large majority of goods can be created with replication/atomic-level-production technologies."
Earlier Nanodot discussions related to this include: Cheap 3D Printers for the Home, Payment Models for an Open Source World and some threads in the big Avoiding Nanotech War discussion.
