There’s only one day a year when I’m crazy enough to purposefully set my alarm for 4:30AM…

For Christmas comes but once a year!

After only being married for two months, I know children will be part of my near future. There will be first words, first steps, first days of school, birthdays ... and, of course, the anxious wait for the morning of December 25th and the presents it brings!

Being from Nicaragua, though, I often wondered as a child how Santa manages to bring his gifts to households around the globe. He faces some serious logistical difficulties! And the world’s population is growing! By the time my children are up waiting for Santa and his gifts, his sleigh will just not suffice.

But what if…

What if Santa had his own little workshop in the home of every well-behaved young boy and girl?

Wouldn’t this be a big relief for him? ... for Rudolph? Donner? and Blitzen? Parents making toys as his elves!

Imagine if parents could 3D print any toy a boy or girl wished for right in their own homes. Barbie dolls ready to style within the hour. Hot Wheels Cars ready to roll within minutes. The Avengers ready to save the world in seconds.

You might be thinking it would cost thousands (if not tens of thousands) of dollars to make this come true. However, that’s not necessarily the case!

As 3D printing technology advances and new 3D printer suppliers enter the market, prices will fall, allowing this technology to be accessible and affordable to the general public.

The 3D printing technology will bring back the element of surprise that has been lost in many households. I for one remember sneaking into my parents’ closet and searching for my holiday gifts, only to rob myself of the Christmas morning surprise. 

3D printing has the power to revive the magic of Christmas!

No longer will Tickle-Me-Elmo (1996) and Furby (1998) be sold out on Christmas day. They will both be waiting for you— online, in your email account.

Do you think StarWars lightsabers will be in stock this at Toys R Us Christmas once Episode VII opens in theaters come December 19^th? May the force be with you… (It’s already out of stock)

So how many Christmas seasons away are we from 3D Gift Printing?

Would you allow Santa to establish a workshop in your home?

Do you think Hasbro, Mattel, and Lego are up for this?

Come on Santa…

Just download…

Now print.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

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Dear Ikea lamp,



We need to talk...

We've been together for quite some time. What can I say? You've been everything to me: star of my late night assignments and dark and rainy Sunday afternoons; you're my unconditional insomnia companion. I have to be honest with you though...things have changed.

I’ve met somebody else through the Internet. 

I know this is hard to digest, but please, let me explain. This was love at first sight: she literally glows in the dark. She’s a beautiful combination of nature and genetic engineering. Some folks in the Bay Area designed her DNA with special software. They bring this design to some other guys who make exact DNA pieces using lasers. The DNA goes back into her system and she becomes bioluminescent: light is produced inside of her and she shines like a star. She is a glowing plant!

She is quite controversial because she’s a creature of synthetic biology. I know this makes her sound very unnatural, but actually there is nothing unnatural about her. She’s inspired by nature and made out of natural pieces. She’s here thanks to our sharing economy, as she was developed using crowdfunded money. The people developing her managed to collect almost half a million dollars to work on her. While it has taken longer than expected, they are getting closer and closer to the final plant. And guess what? I can hardly wait! 

Because she is a GMO (genetically modified organism), there’s some skepticism around her. People are scared she’ll become a danger to our health and our environment. At the moment there’s no proof to support these concerns, but governments and scientists need to figure out a way to understand and regulate all ethical and environment issues concerning her. Honestly, we all need her: she gives light at a much lower cost, she makes us independent of any other energy sources and let’s face it, she’s nature.


I’d rather have her than a plastic lamp. No offense...

Soon, her seeds will be shipped all over the world. Because she’s open source we will be able to share her with all of our friends. And like old wine, the older she’ll be, the better (and brighter) she will get. She gives so much and asks for so little.



 I think I’m going to have to let you go. 

Thanks for everything.



Yours truly,
Your former lover






Pics from PhotoPin

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I have been amazed by 3D printing since I first heard about it.  How could a machine actually print something three dimensional without needing a mold or tons of equipment?  I still have a hard time actually wrapping my head around 3D printing technology, but 3D printers are being used by different types of industries and even available to purchase for home use.  I have seen many uses for 3D printed objects and how they can benefit - the sciences by making new tools, architects by making small scale models for houses, jewelers for making proto-types of jewelry …the list goes on and on. All the products that I had seen a 3D printer used for were on the smaller scale until I recently came across an article for a 3D printed house.  What?  You can actually press “print” and a structure that someone could live in would be created?  This seemed absolutely impossible but I have now learned that companies, researchers and engineers are experimenting with new technologies to print 3D houses.

How it works.

I have come across a few different projects working on 3D printed houses; one being The 3D PrintCanal House based in Amsterdam, a company called WinSun located in China and researchers at University of Nantes(IRCCyN) based in France that are testing technology to print 3D Houses.  There are of course more companies working on projects like this but I found the most articles on these in my Google search. 

Each company has a slightly different way in printing the house.  The 3D Print Canal house is using a printer called Kamermaker.  This printer, prints the structure in pieces and then the pieces are assembled to create the house.  WinSun also uses a similar printing style.  On the other hand, the University in France is testing out a printer called INNOPrint 3D that prints the structure all at once.  The printer uses an articulated arm that makes this possible.

Materials Used.

Bioplastics and other recycled materials are being used to print the structures, which means the resources needed to produce the house are cheaper, environmentally friendly and produce less waste than a traditionally constructed house.  In addition, there are less transportation costs with printing a house than shipping raw materials which helps save money.

Speed.

A huge benefit using a 3D printer is the speed that they are able to produce a structure.  WinSun printed 10 200-meter homes in less than 24 hours and INNOPrint 3D printed a house in just 30 minutes.  With this sort of speed, when disasters hit 3D Printed houses can be a great option to provide quick cheep housing to those in need.   

How 3D printed houses stand up to building requirements, wind and other environmental conditions is still being tested but I think it is just a matter of time before we start seeing more buildings that are printed with a printer.

The fact that structures can be build so quickly at a cheaper cost is going to change the way we look at construction and will hopefully provide better housing options for those in need, especially at the time when disaster strikes and buildings that don’t cost a lot are needed in short time frames.

I wonder if it is just a matter of time before I can create my dream home by just pressing print…I guess time will tell.

Photo Courtesy of: 3dprint.com

Video:

INNOPrint 3D at work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyAMVkOdpBs

Related Articles:

http://3dprint.com/81560/innoprint-3d-printed-housing/

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/10/3d-printing-future-disaster-relief-20141016825642208.html

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Of all the fantastic innovations Star Trek promised us when it first aired in 1966, there is one that has truly stayed in our minds: The Holodeck. Infinite worlds out of a machine, completely realistic to the human eye, generated within seconds. In 1974, the year of its first appearance, this technology seemed to be light years away. However, with high-end Virtual Reality (VR) devices hitting the mass market later this year, this might not be true anymore. VR is nothing new – the technology was first tested in 1982. But today the overall conditions for success of this technology are far more favorable than ever before – for three main reasons:

Resourceful market players:

Five giants are going to enter the market for VR lenses in very short time frame: HTC and Valve (known as highly successful game developer and operator of one of the largest digital stores for videogames worldwide) cooperate to bring “HTC Vive” to stores in holiday season 2015. Oculus, which is backed by Microsoft and Facebook, is expected to launch its VR device “Oculus Rift” early 2016. Sony launches its “Playstation VR” anytime first half 2016, as additional input device for its successful Playstation 4. Besides, smaller providers, such as Starbreeze, launch individual VR products in the near future. With so much financial investment and market power, VR has a strong starting position.

Top-notch hardware in our living rooms:

In its early days, VR was something for nerds with access to high power technology devices at universities. With technological advancements over the last years and falling IT equipment prices, this is no longer the case. Today, the necessary hardware to build realistic three dimensional worlds is available for use at home in your living room. For Playstation VR, a Playstation 4 is sufficient. Both Oculus Rift and HTC Vive run with currently available high-powered personal computers. Even though the virtual worlds do not yet reach the graphic quality of standard video games, PC based systems will especially profit from the next innovation cycles and thus offer the same graphic quality in only a few years.

Versatility:

VR is not only conquering normal video games, but also other domains in entertainment.  “The VOID”, a Salt Lake City based theme park is about to open next summer. The park, built into an old cinema, offers a physical environment of 60 times 60 feet. Visitors are equipped with VR headsets and vests and then enter the Virtual World. What “The VOID” does then, however, is it blends its virtual realities over its physical realities. As a consequence, visitors walk through a virtual world, but are still able to interact with physical objects, such as doors and displays. Furthermore, the VOID uses ambience effects such as sounds and real rain in order to offer a complete immersive experience.

The German theme park “Freizeitpark Rust” cooperates with University of Kaiserslautern in building the first “VRcoaster”. The university created a virtual rollercoaster ride perfectly aligned with the real ride. As a consequence, visitors see a virtual world, but feel a real rollercoaster ride. This way the human eye receives virtual information, while the rest of the body feels the g-forces and the wind in their face for yet another fully immersive VR experience.

And all this is only the beginning: Why not check all the exotic beaches you always wanted to see before you even set foot in a plane? Why not visit Ancient Rome in history lessons and becoming witness to how Brutus kills Caesar? Why not play a game of golf on Mars instead of the same old golf course? Why not follow the soccer world championship finals out of the eyes of Lionel Messi? Why not have a business meeting with everyone in the same virtual room, yet thousands of real world kilometers apart? The possibilities for reasonable and feasible uses of VR are endless.

So all in all, this time VR is very likely to become a huge success. The number of VR users expected to increase to 171m worldwide by 2018. In the same year, VR revenues are estimated to reach 4.67bn $ in hardware sales, and 4.65bn $ in software sales. With the support from relevant market players on one side, and endless technological opportunities on the other, VR has the chance to be the next big thing. Like smartphones, which were a true technological revolution, VR will become integrated into our everyday lives, change a lot and make us wonder how we could have ever lived without it.

Holodecks might not be here yet. But with VR, they are just around the corner.

Further reading:

-        http://www.htcvr.com/

-        https://www.oculus.com/en-us/

-        https://www.playstation.com/en-us/explore/project-morpheus/

-        http://starbreeze.com/

-        https://thevoid.com/

-        http://www.vrcoaster.com/

-        http://de.statista.com

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