Crazy, isn't it. And this is only one of many food-related 3D printing efforts I've read about over the years. It seems like the possibilities are limitless with this kind of technology.
I suppose I should have guessed that MIT's Media Lab would come up with 3D food printing and cooking. I was half-joking when I mentioned 3D Easter bunnies. I wouldn't have imagined that anyone was actually doing that sort of thing.
Now you've hit on a subject near and dear to my heart--food! As some of the others noted, 3D printers are already actually being used in food preparation and presentation. I wrote about one particular project at MIT years ago. Cornucopia is a concept design for a personal digital food factory, which stores, mixes, deposits (and even cooks) layers of of ingredients, essentially "3D printing" them into the final product.
I have already seen some 3D projects in chocolate and pastes. I believe you can order custom "prints" from a sweet shop on the west coast.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/08/3d-chocolate-printer_n_893381.html
More time spent on prototyping in the form of more time spent exploring design options should help optimize those designs. And that should at least give the opportunity for better testing and quality. That's what I'm hoping, anyway.
@Droid: Starting to happen already. There are hobbyist 3D printer kits for between $1,000 and $2,000, and 3D Systems recently rolled out a more office-friendly, packaged 3D printer in the ball park of that same price point. I think we'll be seeing a lot more options in this category over the next few months/years.
For 3D printing to make the jump from rapid prototyping to manufacturing, engineers will need to find easier ways to move products from their CAD screens to their printers.
Gigabit and PoE are two networking technologies moving ahead in tandem as industrial users power remote Ethernet devices such as IP security cameras at 1,000 Mbps over existing CAT5 cable.
New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
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For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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