This could potentially be the most disruptive technology introduced since the personal computer. A 3-D printer is literally a factory in a box; a person puts in raw material, pushes a button, and the box makes an object.
Today's 3-D printers make plastic models or metal parts for machines. They're called printers because they make three dimensional objects the way printers put images on paper. In the future, when you go to the garage, instead of ordering parts, the mechanic could look them up online, then download the designs into a 3-D printer that could make them. Huge numbers of inventors and engineers all over the world are working on 3-D printers. There are plans for printers that make food, clothing, chemicals, and drugs. A pharmacist using a drug printer could manufacture your prescription while you wait. A company named Contour Crafting even has plans to make buildings with 3-D printed components. If 3-D printing works out, the changes it brings could be vast. Instead of factories in China making our clothes and a vast transportation structure, there could be a machine in a shop at the mall that makes clothing.
There's also a dark side to this; for example, how will gun control laws be enforced if anybody can download the plans to an AK-47 and make one using a printer?
As with every technology, this one will become a boon or a bane, only time will tell.
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