Drawingmachine by Eske Rex from Core77 on Vimeo.
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Tuesday, 19 April 2011
The technology of fabrication and the means by which it can improve lives.
After writing the last few blog posts, which I hope in some vague way covered some of the basics of new and emerging systems of fabrication, I guess I’m left wondering where the actual future lies. Those who champion the virtues of the next big thing are always going to be somewhat utopian in their vision. The steam engine, electricity and nuclear power, aside from their often irrational detractors sadly also had an equal number of irrational advocates. While these advances in technology have yet to definitively destroy the earth, neither did they end poverty, famine or cure all known diseases and make a three day work week standard. For all that technology often inspires dreams of a better future, those visions need to be bound by what is actually possible. When the initial discoveries about electricity were being made there was an eruption of ridiculous claims about its power, the novel Frankenstein was in many respects a kind of summary of these crackpot theories. More interesting though are those claims that lie within the boundaries of what is physically possible and yet never see the fruition their champion’s desire. With the advent of nuclear power as a means of generating electricity, there some who believed there would soon be a day when every home might possess one. Practical issues, and subsequent discoveries about its danger meant we would never see a micro reactor replace the gas boiler. While the link between nuclear power and nuclear warfare meant applications in a civilian context would have to be limited. Many of the nuclear reactors built used a design that enabled them to yield nuclear material meant for nuclear weaponry.
Nuclear power is something of a red herring for this blog, which concentrates on technology available to the typical consumer, but it does highlight what I want to discuss today. Were it not for the demand for materials suitable for nuclear weapons, nuclear technology could have developed very differently. There is certainly no question that the world we live in has benefited because of nuclear technology in general. Alas, the legacy of nuclear weapons have left us with nuclear reactors far more dangerous than they needed to be. There is reason for guarded optimism, new designs offer nuclear power that is more efficient and far less toxic. For instance serious research into Thorium molten salt reactors. Thorium, a heavy metal far more common that the materials required for current reactors and with a much shorter time span during which waste materials are dangerous, could offer a new generation of nuclear power, not only less hazardous but incapable of being used to produce materials necessary for nuclear weapons.
This leads us back to my point about the way in which scientific discoveries and new technology, while they may have any number of possible applications, in the end enter a marketplace that will have a profound effect on the way it is used. It was the necessity to build large arsenalsa of nuclear weapons that led to the design for reactors most common today. In much the same way, mass production has shaped the kinds of technology we can possess. We live in an age where we can have something cheap provided millions of people can have and afford the same thing too. This means that if you want something unique, bespoke made just for you it will cost far more than the equivalent manufactured item. For all practical purposes what you can get that is unique is somewhat limited too. For items like household electronics and other devices, it is impractical regardless of budget to have machinery built just for you. There is at least one good reason for this, aside from the cost of developing the next big thing, be it faster computer processors, better vacuum cleaners or more efficient light bulbs there is no need for many of these items to be custom made. Once they are designed, manufacture reduces these goods almost to the level of undistinguishable commodities. There may be people who want a particular product to be customised to their own aesthetic tastes, but the internal components of the resulting machine or device are likely to be little different in form or function than the equivalent item bought at bargain basement prices. A good example are personal computers designed for the professional computer game players (yes, such people exist!). These computers are a far cry from those most people would experience in their home or workplace and considerably more powerful. All so that those enjoy the PC as a gaming machine can squeeze a few extra frames from their set-up. You might think spending a few hundred euros for a PC is sufficient but the truly dedicated player can easily part with several thousand. The architecture is the same, but the individual components are all top of the line and from the perspective of design, they sure look pretty(Take a look at this set-up from Alienware).
So there is a market for those who want to put their own stamp on the items they own, but will the technology to do so lowering in price and availability will there ever be a real demand for it. Will the demand for product differentiation ever get to the point where the typical consumer will expect there device to be unique. I doubt it, part of the reason for the success of mass production is that not only are devices cheap, because they share so much of the same functionality; learning to use one such device means using others like it is so much easier. There is a point to be made about psychology too. Ownership of these goods is often a declaration of what kind of person you are and which groups and communities you have an affinity with. Macs versus P.C.s being a good example. There is a desire among consumers to forego customisation to declare loyalty to communities that favour certain goods over another, sometimes at the expense of quality, value and utility (The strange decisions supposedly rational consumers make really is a puzzle for those who study the marketplace). If the advances being in made in fabrication are going to enter the marketplace in a big way, I suspect that something approaching a revolution is needed. If it doesn’t happen in this little corner of the planet, could it happen somewhere else?
To be continued...
After writing the last few blog posts, which I hope in some vague way covered some of the basics of new and emerging systems of fabrication, I guess I’m left wondering where the actual future lies. Those who champion the virtues of the next big thing are always going to be somewhat utopian in their vision. The steam engine, electricity and nuclear power, aside from their often irrational detractors sadly also had an equal number of irrational advocates. While these advances in technology have yet to definitively destroy the earth, neither did they end poverty, famine or cure all known diseases and make a three day work week standard. For all that technology often inspires dreams of a better future, those visions need to be bound by what is actually possible. When the initial discoveries about electricity were being made there was an eruption of ridiculous claims about its power, the novel Frankenstein was in many respects a kind of summary of these crackpot theories. More interesting though are those claims that lie within the boundaries of what is physically possible and yet never see the fruition their champion’s desire. With the advent of nuclear power as a means of generating electricity, there some who believed there would soon be a day when every home might possess one. Practical issues, and subsequent discoveries about its danger meant we would never see a micro reactor replace the gas boiler. While the link between nuclear power and nuclear warfare meant applications in a civilian context would have to be limited. Many of the nuclear reactors built used a design that enabled them to yield nuclear material meant for nuclear weaponry.
Nuclear power is something of a red herring for this blog, which concentrates on technology available to the typical consumer, but it does highlight what I want to discuss today. Were it not for the demand for materials suitable for nuclear weapons, nuclear technology could have developed very differently. There is certainly no question that the world we live in has benefited because of nuclear technology in general. Alas, the legacy of nuclear weapons have left us with nuclear reactors far more dangerous than they needed to be. There is reason for guarded optimism, new designs offer nuclear power that is more efficient and far less toxic. For instance serious research into Thorium molten salt reactors. Thorium, a heavy metal far more common that the materials required for current reactors and with a much shorter time span during which waste materials are dangerous, could offer a new generation of nuclear power, not only less hazardous but incapable of being used to produce materials necessary for nuclear weapons.
This leads us back to my point about the way in which scientific discoveries and new technology, while they may have any number of possible applications, in the end enter a marketplace that will have a profound effect on the way it is used. It was the necessity to build large arsenalsa of nuclear weapons that led to the design for reactors most common today. In much the same way, mass production has shaped the kinds of technology we can possess. We live in an age where we can have something cheap provided millions of people can have and afford the same thing too. This means that if you want something unique, bespoke made just for you it will cost far more than the equivalent manufactured item. For all practical purposes what you can get that is unique is somewhat limited too. For items like household electronics and other devices, it is impractical regardless of budget to have machinery built just for you. There is at least one good reason for this, aside from the cost of developing the next big thing, be it faster computer processors, better vacuum cleaners or more efficient light bulbs there is no need for many of these items to be custom made. Once they are designed, manufacture reduces these goods almost to the level of undistinguishable commodities. There may be people who want a particular product to be customised to their own aesthetic tastes, but the internal components of the resulting machine or device are likely to be little different in form or function than the equivalent item bought at bargain basement prices. A good example are personal computers designed for the professional computer game players (yes, such people exist!). These computers are a far cry from those most people would experience in their home or workplace and considerably more powerful. All so that those enjoy the PC as a gaming machine can squeeze a few extra frames from their set-up. You might think spending a few hundred euros for a PC is sufficient but the truly dedicated player can easily part with several thousand. The architecture is the same, but the individual components are all top of the line and from the perspective of design, they sure look pretty(Take a look at this set-up from Alienware).
So there is a market for those who want to put their own stamp on the items they own, but will the technology to do so lowering in price and availability will there ever be a real demand for it. Will the demand for product differentiation ever get to the point where the typical consumer will expect there device to be unique. I doubt it, part of the reason for the success of mass production is that not only are devices cheap, because they share so much of the same functionality; learning to use one such device means using others like it is so much easier. There is a point to be made about psychology too. Ownership of these goods is often a declaration of what kind of person you are and which groups and communities you have an affinity with. Macs versus P.C.s being a good example. There is a desire among consumers to forego customisation to declare loyalty to communities that favour certain goods over another, sometimes at the expense of quality, value and utility (The strange decisions supposedly rational consumers make really is a puzzle for those who study the marketplace). If the advances being in made in fabrication are going to enter the marketplace in a big way, I suspect that something approaching a revolution is needed. If it doesn’t happen in this little corner of the planet, could it happen somewhere else?
To be continued...
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
Nerd Art
Just a quickie, came across this on Wired and thought it fitted into the themes of this blog pretty well. Despite everything I said about the bland anonymity of mass production, someone somewhere will find a way to put their individual stamp on things. Even though in this case, it's art no-one is physically capable of seeing (unless your eyes can magnify objects 200-500 times). Check out the article here: Wired: Microscopic art.
For a more comprehensive gallery from ChipWorks, the company that found these very little masterpieces, click here:
For a more comprehensive gallery from ChipWorks, the company that found these very little masterpieces, click here:
Tuesday, 5 April 2011
Someday
Where was I?
Funny, but the last few articles on the power of new technologies, leads to an interruption to the usual programming and take a short detail through the politics of manufacture. A brief and sketchy interlude it will be too. Now and again in preceding posts I mentioned the marketplace, the demand for this technology and the kinds of people who might benefit from it. It seems to me that at this moment demand is mostly limited to hard core technophiles, hobbyists who might find a use for it in their chosen past-times and some random collection of dilettantes wanting to play with the next big thing. In terms of actual industrial application, these devices are used predominantly in two ways: To prototype objects for testing, evaluation and experimenting before they are approved for mass production or for the production of high cost objects and devices for which demand is relatively low. The notion that mass production might be in some way threatened by the advent of these devices becoming available to the home user not at this point in time a real issue. So far these devices only produce simple objects typically made from one material. Objects with more than one material can be made but typically this would require they be assembled after each piece is printed. There is an upper limit in the complexity of these newly manufactured objects. Motors, electronic components, fabrics and other kinds of product, all require specialised and often expensive manufacturing techniques. As yet, no device exists cheap enough and versatile enough to fabricate these items, they are still the purview of large corporations creating these objects in bulk. This is not to say that the hobbyist has no means to make their own electronic devices. The individual components; resistors, microchips printed circuit boards et al can all be purchased. Though it does not receive much by way of press attention there is an active community of people building their own sophisticated devices and making them available to others for purchase or simply distributing their blueprints for others to make their own copies.
I could wax lyrical at this point about the dissemination of knowledge through the medium of good ol' W3v2.0. I could make some kind of profound point about the evolution of information transmission and how it is transforming the world before our eyes quite apart from the physical infrastructure upon which it relies. In effect there is nothing that is not a commodity. Stuff + Information = Goods and Services of any kind. It goes without saying this is as exclusive a club as there has ever been. A hobbyist, some strange hermit like creature with tendrils wrapped around the necessary server nodes might indeed be able to boast that he can build everything he needs, but he would be a liar. There some items you just can't build outside a factory or the multi-million dollar equipped lab which designs its product line and the machinery used to build more machinery. The hobbyist has a long way to go before he/she starts out with silicon crystals and copper and ends up with an Xbox. You can shop for the bits and bobs you need, or salvage it from the flotsam and jetsam of our consumer age, but right now there is a limit. Still though, the inherent complexity of building stuff, in this case especially electronic stuff, is a barrier rapidly eroding. It is not the high cost that is the issue, I suspect components have never been cheaper, and even though blueprints are readily available on-line for many types of doodad, the skill set is still limited to the professional engineer and the dedicated hobbyist. I might be able to knock together my own little graphing calculator, vacuum cleaner, or washing machine but it would be difficult to imagine making enough of them at the right price to make a living, not when one is competing with multi-billion dollar industries. In fact, would such a thing be even possible?
Let's take a trip to a strange and exciting place, far far distant and peopled by creatures perhaps very different than the sort we are used to. In this odd world there is no hunger, no stupidity, no shortage of resources, no corrupt bankers and no dirty stinking politicians (or is that corrupt politicians and dirty stinking bankers?). Many of you like myself might have difficulty visualising such a place and myself I can hardly imagine such people to have the same number of arms, legs eyes and ears as we do, and if all that weren't ridiculous enough let's assume for the hell of it that everyone one of these strange alien people is a polymath. Everyone here is perfectly educated, all the skills and knowledge required in this world is known to everyone. Anyone can build a car or a plane, participate effectively in government, perform a heart transplant (or whatever organ these weirdos use to pump their bodily fluids) and should they feel so inclined write a novel or sing a song of such artistry, heart searing emotional truth and technical wizardry as to make the very stones weep. Actually that last bit might be a bit of stretch, I'll settle for mere technical know-how and an ethic of self reliance. I'll leave it to an even stranger race of freaks to be universally endowed with all of the artistic talent of our greatest prodigies combined. Anyway in this perfect world and perfect society what need is there of consumerism and mass production. It would be an insult to the honour of such folk to think that they would need to buy something they could not make for themselves. Instead they would call up the library on their fancy 'puters give themselves a quick reminder of the materials they need and forthwith set about creating the devices they and each one would be made to suit the individual tastes of their maker. In truth they don't always do this, but in this strange near Spartan land to be a citizen requires they be so qualified to do so. Unlike us, by law they are required to understand intimately any device they own all in the name of the sovereignty of the individual they hold so dear. They may 'allow' others to build things for them, citizens may be allowed to specialise to increase the sum level of expertise in their society but without fail each of these people has one item in their home. It may be more advanced than anything mere humans have yet invented but in essence it is little different than the 3D printers we have been speaking of.
The question is would enough people be capable of using these machines effectively in the world we live in. How could such a system develop? Imagine something like an app store, divided into two main sections: blueprints (including tutorials, project planning templates etc) and materials (either raw materials or simple components). In theory a huge range of goods could be stored here, home furnishings and machinery, cars, you name it and in some form it is here). Companies specialising in simply providing resources to the home manufacturer might provide the highest quality and easiest to manufacture goods, but others might provide simple modifications you can incorporate into your version (just be sure to check their quality ratings!). Could there be an advantage to this approach that conventional devices lack? The answer lies in our expectations of the goods we own. It seems the age has long since when we expected to be able to repair let alone even make our own stuff. Yet there is no real reason for this other than the nature of the design of the goods themselves. It would take relatively little to design goods in such a way that repair and even assembly from kits would be possible. Sadly, since the consumer is now considered both extremely fragile and most likely thicker than two planks, for our own safety we are quite often prevented from opening up our doodads and messing around with their insides. Because of this I think we are losing out, we own devices that are not only utter mysteries to us but frightening strange machines auguring death should they be defiled. Yet if there was demand, not only would we be invited inside to marvel at how they work, we could opt to assemble them ourselves, customise them so they fit us, rather than the other way around. Instead of being warned away with arcane symbols warning of doom instead we would see instructions flattering our intellects and enriching our lives.
Someday, someday...
Funny, but the last few articles on the power of new technologies, leads to an interruption to the usual programming and take a short detail through the politics of manufacture. A brief and sketchy interlude it will be too. Now and again in preceding posts I mentioned the marketplace, the demand for this technology and the kinds of people who might benefit from it. It seems to me that at this moment demand is mostly limited to hard core technophiles, hobbyists who might find a use for it in their chosen past-times and some random collection of dilettantes wanting to play with the next big thing. In terms of actual industrial application, these devices are used predominantly in two ways: To prototype objects for testing, evaluation and experimenting before they are approved for mass production or for the production of high cost objects and devices for which demand is relatively low. The notion that mass production might be in some way threatened by the advent of these devices becoming available to the home user not at this point in time a real issue. So far these devices only produce simple objects typically made from one material. Objects with more than one material can be made but typically this would require they be assembled after each piece is printed. There is an upper limit in the complexity of these newly manufactured objects. Motors, electronic components, fabrics and other kinds of product, all require specialised and often expensive manufacturing techniques. As yet, no device exists cheap enough and versatile enough to fabricate these items, they are still the purview of large corporations creating these objects in bulk. This is not to say that the hobbyist has no means to make their own electronic devices. The individual components; resistors, microchips printed circuit boards et al can all be purchased. Though it does not receive much by way of press attention there is an active community of people building their own sophisticated devices and making them available to others for purchase or simply distributing their blueprints for others to make their own copies.
I could wax lyrical at this point about the dissemination of knowledge through the medium of good ol' W3v2.0. I could make some kind of profound point about the evolution of information transmission and how it is transforming the world before our eyes quite apart from the physical infrastructure upon which it relies. In effect there is nothing that is not a commodity. Stuff + Information = Goods and Services of any kind. It goes without saying this is as exclusive a club as there has ever been. A hobbyist, some strange hermit like creature with tendrils wrapped around the necessary server nodes might indeed be able to boast that he can build everything he needs, but he would be a liar. There some items you just can't build outside a factory or the multi-million dollar equipped lab which designs its product line and the machinery used to build more machinery. The hobbyist has a long way to go before he/she starts out with silicon crystals and copper and ends up with an Xbox. You can shop for the bits and bobs you need, or salvage it from the flotsam and jetsam of our consumer age, but right now there is a limit. Still though, the inherent complexity of building stuff, in this case especially electronic stuff, is a barrier rapidly eroding. It is not the high cost that is the issue, I suspect components have never been cheaper, and even though blueprints are readily available on-line for many types of doodad, the skill set is still limited to the professional engineer and the dedicated hobbyist. I might be able to knock together my own little graphing calculator, vacuum cleaner, or washing machine but it would be difficult to imagine making enough of them at the right price to make a living, not when one is competing with multi-billion dollar industries. In fact, would such a thing be even possible?
Let's take a trip to a strange and exciting place, far far distant and peopled by creatures perhaps very different than the sort we are used to. In this odd world there is no hunger, no stupidity, no shortage of resources, no corrupt bankers and no dirty stinking politicians (or is that corrupt politicians and dirty stinking bankers?). Many of you like myself might have difficulty visualising such a place and myself I can hardly imagine such people to have the same number of arms, legs eyes and ears as we do, and if all that weren't ridiculous enough let's assume for the hell of it that everyone one of these strange alien people is a polymath. Everyone here is perfectly educated, all the skills and knowledge required in this world is known to everyone. Anyone can build a car or a plane, participate effectively in government, perform a heart transplant (or whatever organ these weirdos use to pump their bodily fluids) and should they feel so inclined write a novel or sing a song of such artistry, heart searing emotional truth and technical wizardry as to make the very stones weep. Actually that last bit might be a bit of stretch, I'll settle for mere technical know-how and an ethic of self reliance. I'll leave it to an even stranger race of freaks to be universally endowed with all of the artistic talent of our greatest prodigies combined. Anyway in this perfect world and perfect society what need is there of consumerism and mass production. It would be an insult to the honour of such folk to think that they would need to buy something they could not make for themselves. Instead they would call up the library on their fancy 'puters give themselves a quick reminder of the materials they need and forthwith set about creating the devices they and each one would be made to suit the individual tastes of their maker. In truth they don't always do this, but in this strange near Spartan land to be a citizen requires they be so qualified to do so. Unlike us, by law they are required to understand intimately any device they own all in the name of the sovereignty of the individual they hold so dear. They may 'allow' others to build things for them, citizens may be allowed to specialise to increase the sum level of expertise in their society but without fail each of these people has one item in their home. It may be more advanced than anything mere humans have yet invented but in essence it is little different than the 3D printers we have been speaking of.
The question is would enough people be capable of using these machines effectively in the world we live in. How could such a system develop? Imagine something like an app store, divided into two main sections: blueprints (including tutorials, project planning templates etc) and materials (either raw materials or simple components). In theory a huge range of goods could be stored here, home furnishings and machinery, cars, you name it and in some form it is here). Companies specialising in simply providing resources to the home manufacturer might provide the highest quality and easiest to manufacture goods, but others might provide simple modifications you can incorporate into your version (just be sure to check their quality ratings!). Could there be an advantage to this approach that conventional devices lack? The answer lies in our expectations of the goods we own. It seems the age has long since when we expected to be able to repair let alone even make our own stuff. Yet there is no real reason for this other than the nature of the design of the goods themselves. It would take relatively little to design goods in such a way that repair and even assembly from kits would be possible. Sadly, since the consumer is now considered both extremely fragile and most likely thicker than two planks, for our own safety we are quite often prevented from opening up our doodads and messing around with their insides. Because of this I think we are losing out, we own devices that are not only utter mysteries to us but frightening strange machines auguring death should they be defiled. Yet if there was demand, not only would we be invited inside to marvel at how they work, we could opt to assemble them ourselves, customise them so they fit us, rather than the other way around. Instead of being warned away with arcane symbols warning of doom instead we would see instructions flattering our intellects and enriching our lives.
Someday, someday...
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