Imagine ordering some way cool gizmo off some infomercial or
shopping channel you’re watching on television, and having it instantly created
from scratch right in your home! No need to wait for overnight shipping, that
way cool gizmo appears right in your home.
That’s just one of many possible amazing future paths we are
on, thanks to 3D printers, and other cool tech.
3D Printers take blueprint instructions for physical objects
you feed into their attached computers, and actually build the thing, by
layering the components one on top of the other, until the way cool gizmo you
ordered off the tele is complete.
It’s called the additive manufacturing process, where a
digital model of a solid object is literally built from the ground-up, via
these layers.
This amazing technology is currently being used to create
jewellery, footwear toys, tools, prototypes, automotive, aerospace, medical
and dental equipment, and a handful of others.
Recently, a man was arrested in the States for using a 3Dprinter to create handguns – so down the road, expect these printers to have
some sort of security chips in ‘em similar to the ones in standard paper
printers which prevent you from scanning or printing paper currency.
Another cool tech scenario – you hop in your car, think
where you want to go, it plots the best route based on current traffic and
weather conditions, and takes you there, all without you having to do a thing!
Self-driving cars are already here – we've all heard about
the ones Google uses to capture their street views. According to Google, they
have been working on consumer models of these for some time, and are
anticipating selling self-driving cars within the next few years – pending government
regulations and of course your own nerves!
Global Positioning Systems (GPS) are already in most newer
cars, along with built-in WiFi, 3G or in newer cars, LTE high speed wireless data
, allowing your car’s computer to know where you are, and feed into the traffic
and weather information networks.
And there are companies working on transferring yourthoughts directly into electronic impulses which can be read and understood bycomputers. This is still very experimental, but they are making significant
progress on this front.
Put all that tech together and having your car know where
you want to go, calculate the best route, and then proceed to take you there isn't that far a stretch.
Now, if only technology could do my laundry, clean my home, make
me dinner and walk the dog for me!
