[MUSIC PLAYING]
CARINE CARMY: 3D
printing is a technology
that lets you take
a digital file
and turn it into a
physical product.
SAM CERVANTES: Almost
anything you can imagine,
people are creating.
I think it's going to open
up whole new opportunities
in areas of mass customization.
MICHAEL WEINBERG: Unlike with
music or movies, with the 3D
printer, a lot of
things that are printed
aren't protected by copyright.
JOSEPH FLAHERTY: One of
the really cool things
about 3D printing is it
really changes the dynamic
of a consumer culture.
It turns you from being
a passive consumer
to an active creator.
SAM CERVANTES: 3D printing is
this amazing new technology
where you can take
a 3D digital file
and with the click of a
button, use that file to create
an actual physical 3D part.
So how does a 3D printer work?
The first step is
to get a 3D file.
And you can get your 3D
file in one of two ways.
One, you can simply download
the file from the internet.
The second way is you can
design your own 3D part.
The software is going to slice
your part up into layers.
By building a part
layer by layer,
you're able to create a plastic
part in three dimensions
and the possibilities
are limited only
by your imagination.
People will create their next
big invention or engineers
and designers create
small production
runs or little prototypes.
Teachers can use it to
print out teaching aids.
If a teacher is doing a
little lesson on a ship,
they can actually print
out a sailing ship
and pass it around the class.
And people print out things
for around the house.
iPhone cases are pretty big.
You break a towel hook, you
can print out a new one.
We want to make 3D
printers at a price
that the average person can
afford and also easy to use.
We're already seeing late-stage
early adoption of 3D printing.
But for me, the exciting
thing is what's to come.
CARINE CARMY: Shapeways
is an online 3D printing
community and marketplace.
Anyone in the world can
upload their 3D model
and we'll print for you.
And then also, if you decide
you want to make it for sale,
you can sell it and
we'll produce it
on demand for that customer
wherever they are in the world.
You can essentially bring a
product to market with no risk.
You don't have
inventory anymore.
You don't have to
make sure that there's
a market ready for your product.
If you sell one, that's awesome.
If you sell 10,000,
then all of a sudden,
you have a passive
income model and that
radically changes the economy.
Usually, to bring a product
to market takes a year.
And then, you have to find the
manufacturer and the investor.
And so it's going to
force us to change
the way we think about
not only buying products,
but how they're made.
One of our colleagues
broke his stroller
and it would have cost
him something like $250
to get that part in the mail
from the stroller company.
And he literally just
3D-printed a stroller part
and got it for $20.
You have this explosive
technology where everything
is made just for you, but at the
price and quality of something
you'd buy in a store.
This could be a scary
technology for some companies,
because what does that
mean for seasons now?
You have infinite
inventory and what
does that mean for
scarcity, which
is one of the core tenets
of so many industries?
I think it's very similar,
though, to social media
or other tools of
engagement, where
you're afraid to see what that
would mean to let consumers
co-create with you
or to really rethink
your traditional
manufacturing process,
because you have
so many middlemen.
I think we just have
to stop thinking
that you need to reach 100,000,
a million people for something
to be successful.
Customization, it's
really changing the way
that we have to think about
design and production, as well.
MICHAEL WEINBERG:
People who make money
by selling things that are
all of a sudden easily copied
with a 3D printer are
going to be worried
that people are going to be
making unauthorized copies
with those 3D printers.
And I think one
of the challenges
for them is going to be,
well, how do I react?
Objects that are
artistic objects, that
are objects that you would
hire an artist to make,
those things are all going
to be protected by copyright.
But those objects
that actually do
things, that have a use besides
just sort of entertaining
or looking nice,
a lot of those are
going to fall outside
the scope of copyright.
They might be protected by
patent, but a lot of them
won't be protected by any
sort of intellectual property
at all.
And as a result of that, you can
use them or improve upon them
or build on them as much as you
want and no one can stop you.
3D printing right now is
at its very beginnings
and so you don't have a lot of
case law about everyday people
making exact copies
of physical objects,
and certainly not
a lot of case law
about people being able to
do that on a large scale.
The good thing, hopefully,
is that the industries that
are disrupted by 3D printing
have the model of the music
industry to maybe learn from.
The music industry, when
someone started copying things,
decided the best thing to do was
take their time and their money
and invest it in suing everyone
they could find and try
and stop the progress
of technology.
That didn't work very well.
And so the hope is that
these creators, when
they see these new technologies,
they capture some of the upside
and they say, oh, wait,
this can change my business
for the better and they do that.
It's a hard thing to do,
but the music industry
has taught us that it may be
the thing they have to do.
JOSEPH FLAHERTY:
3D printing's going
to have a profound
impact on all of us,
whether you consider
yourself a designer or not.
In the future, there are
going to be 3D printers that
will allow you to
actually create
three-dimensional structures
out of living cells.
And they can build very
complex structures,
like blood vessels
or skin tissue.
And the idea there is
that in 10 or 20 years,
these scientists are going to
be able to 3D-print tissue that
could replace damaged
vessels of the heart
or they might be able to
print replacement organs.
So you won't have to go to
find an organ donor anymore.
You'll just be able to have
one 3D-printed at the hospital
based on your own cell and
your own genetic makeup.
Right now at MIT,
scientists are working
on 3D printers
that would actually
allow you to print food.
And who wouldn't want that
in their house, right?
If you could just ask
Siri to cook you a steak,
I mean, it's really going to be
an exciting time in the home.
In Japan, there's a company
that's taking sonogram data.
So they scan a
pregnant woman's belly
and they're able to actually
3D-print a figure of her torso.
So instead of just having
a fuzzy little black
and white picture,
you're getting
a real model of what your
child is going to look like.
People are using
3D printers to do
all sorts of interesting things
in terms of the environment.
Researchers are
using 3D printers
that can print concrete
to make replacements
for parts of the Great Barrier
Reef that have been damaged.
Normally, those reefs take
thousands of years to build.
But what these scientists do
is they find the areas that
are damaged, they
make CAD replicas
of those damaged areas, and
they print them in concrete.
So it's a base
structure upon which
coral can create a top layer.
And that helps reinvigorate
the environment.
It helps return
normality to that area.
And one of the coolest
things about 3D printing
is that it's a community
that never stops innovating.
There are hundreds
of innovators who
are making little tweaks
to these products, who are
trying out different things.
And so it really gives
everybody an opportunity
to create anything
they could imagine.
[WHIRRING]
CARINE CARMY: 3D
printing is a next wave
of how brands and
consumers can engage.
And now, we're just
starting to see that happen.
JOSEPH FLAHERTY: In
a few years' time,
they're going to be no
more difficult to use
or difficult to understand
than a camera phone.
MICHAEL WEINBERG: The way to
protect creators and designers
is to make sure to give
people a way to spend money
on 3D-printed things.
SAM CERVANTES: In
the future, we're
going to see a lot
more people unleashing
their pent-up
creativity and that's
what's most exciting for me.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
