Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hi there everyone, Welcome to Forward Thinking. I
Speaker 1: am your host, Jonathan Strickland, and I'm joined by two
Speaker 1: of my favorite people in the whole wide world, and
Speaker 1: they are Lauren Vocal Band and Joe McCormick. And what
Speaker 1: is it we're going to talk about today, Lauren? Three
Speaker 1: D printing? What is that? Three D printing a k A.
Speaker 1: Additive manufacturing is a process by which much the same
Speaker 1: way that you would print a two D document with ink,
Speaker 1: instead uses a plastic or glass or metals to layer
Speaker 1: by layer print out a three dimensional object. Pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: So so really you're only limited by whatever three dimensional
Speaker 1: model you have. A digital model, So you could take
Speaker 1: a digital model and send that information to the printer
Speaker 1: and the printer would replicate that correct. So um, well,
Speaker 1: where would you get stuff that you could print? I
Speaker 1: mean what where would where would the information come from
Speaker 1: from anywhere? From you know, from in your brain or
Speaker 1: you could you could I mean the really cool application
Speaker 1: of this hypothetically is that you can be designing your
Speaker 1: own stuff and sharing it with the rest of the universe. Cool. So,
Speaker 1: like you could build what you think of as the
Speaker 1: perfect coffee table, and then share that file some way
Speaker 1: and let other people download it than they could print.
Speaker 1: It could turn into a creative Commons of things. You know,
Speaker 1: it a cree creative Commons of course, being the easy
Speaker 1: copyright licensing company that that helps people share stuff safely
Speaker 1: and easily on the interwebs. And and yeah, and if
Speaker 1: we if we turned that into a into a hey,
Speaker 1: I made this really cool chair. I want everyone to
Speaker 1: have my chair, or I want everyone to have my chair,
Speaker 1: but not corporations to make money on it. Then it
Speaker 1: would hypothetically provide a really easy way to do that.
Speaker 1: That's kind of cool. So we could have like this,
Speaker 1: this amount of the kind of exchange for him, where
Speaker 1: not just things like like like stories or music or
Speaker 1: movies or whatever. We could actually share our physical objects.
Speaker 1: I could create, maybe like a prop I would want
Speaker 1: for some sort of video that I'm shooting. And then
Speaker 1: people who thought the prop was cool could say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, are you making replicas of that? I might say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, here's the digital file. You can make your
Speaker 1: own replica. That's the best PVC pipe sword I've ever seen. Hey,
Speaker 1: do not mock my PVC pipe sword or I shall
Speaker 1: smite you with it. But there there's another sign to this.
Speaker 1: I mean that this this is really exciting, and it's
Speaker 1: a cool way for people who are creative and who
Speaker 1: can have this acumen to both build stuff in the
Speaker 1: physical realm and in the digital realm to share their work.
Speaker 1: But it also gives rise to the opportunity for people
Speaker 1: to pirate designs, which is kind of amazing you think
Speaker 1: about it. Suddenly, real physical objects that inhabit our world
Speaker 1: can become the the stuff that it gets exchanged over
Speaker 1: the internet illegally. So a furniture store might have a
Speaker 1: very specific kind of piece of furniture that ends up
Speaker 1: being scanned in some way, and then next thing you know,
Speaker 1: people at home are printing them up instead of going
Speaker 1: to the furniture store. Right, you have the napster of furniture.
Speaker 1: That's kind of phenomenal. I mean, think about that, like illegal,
Speaker 1: but phenomenal. I mean it's exciting inside from the part
Speaker 1: where all of a sudden the artist is sitting there going, hey,
Speaker 1: I I am an artist, and I spent my my
Speaker 1: time and money because my my time is my money
Speaker 1: creating this object. And you just took a picture of
Speaker 1: it with your fancy three D camera and are printing
Speaker 1: it out at home. It's not cool, yeah, especially if
Speaker 1: you're thinking about someone who's making stuff, even especially by hand.
Speaker 1: I mean people who are really crafting the Yah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're using subtractive manufacturing. Most likely they're actually carving stuff away.
Speaker 1: But but they are creating these things that take a
Speaker 1: genuine level of effort and artistry to to create. And
Speaker 1: then someone ends up making a scan of it in
Speaker 1: some way and then distributes that freely across the internet.
Speaker 1: That person's work has been devalued. And that's it's kind
Speaker 1: of an interesting problem. It's something that you never would
Speaker 1: have thought of before. I mean that there's certain things
Speaker 1: certain industries have had problems with counterfeiting before. So for example,
Speaker 1: like designer handbags, that's that's one I always or shoes
Speaker 1: that's another one. These are are things that often, you know,
Speaker 1: you might walk down a city street and a pretty
Speaker 1: popular city and see someone with a blanket laid out
Speaker 1: on the sidewalk with a whole bunch of what looks
Speaker 1: like designer bags, but they're all knockoffs. And the idea
Speaker 1: is that you can have the glamor of owning that
Speaker 1: particular object, but for a fraction of what the real
Speaker 1: object would cost. And when we look close, we can
Speaker 1: usually tell, you know, what a knockoff is, you know,
Speaker 1: as a different brand name or something like that on it.
Speaker 1: But here we're talking about the full creation of an
Speaker 1: object from from nothing to egg Zach specifications, and that
Speaker 1: gets a little tricky. You kind of have to wonder
Speaker 1: if in the future there will be people whose job
Speaker 1: it is to be an authenticator of real handcrafted stuff,
Speaker 1: right the same way that nowadays you can get a
Speaker 1: cubic zirconia that that is indistinguishable from a diamond uh
Speaker 1: to to the average person, and you have to take
Speaker 1: it to a jeweler, a geologist, somebody with a trained
Speaker 1: special expertise who can look at it with their tools
Speaker 1: and all that, and and he or she can tell
Speaker 1: but you can't. Yeah, same thing, except now instead of
Speaker 1: it just being cubic zirconia, it could be the super
Speaker 1: fancy designer chair that would normally cost a significant chunk
Speaker 1: of my salary to purchase, and yet I ended up
Speaker 1: printing it at home. And this is kind of far off.
Speaker 1: I mean, we we can't currently print with biological objects
Speaker 1: like like wood or leather or something like that. It's
Speaker 1: all plastic metal. And so if it's that supermodern style
Speaker 1: that you would see in a documentary like American Psycho,
Speaker 1: um uh yeah, something like that, where it's that that
Speaker 1: corporate look where everything's made out of glass and metal
Speaker 1: and that's that's it. Yeah, yeah, then then yeah you
Speaker 1: could do that. But if it was something like a
Speaker 1: leather chair, you would be a little it would be
Speaker 1: a little harder to do. I mean, not not to
Speaker 1: say that we won't have the ability to print either
Speaker 1: in those materials or synthetic versions of them in the future, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, if we're printing organs like we talked about
Speaker 1: in another episode, it's very possible that we could have
Speaker 1: the ability to print in leather or in wood. I'm
Speaker 1: sure the cows would thank us printing leather. I mean,
Speaker 1: if the cows were capable of thanking us. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure what that would sound like. Probably move, but
Speaker 1: I imagine that's their primary calcular that's their fall back.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's it's it's actually it's more of a
Speaker 1: low shriek. That's true. H We love our cow listeners.
Speaker 1: So anyway, the the yeah, this is this is something
Speaker 1: where we don't have to immediately worry about it. Obviously,
Speaker 1: we're not at a point where, uh, the average consumer
Speaker 1: can go out and buy a printer large enough to
Speaker 1: even do this. A lot of the consumer level printers
Speaker 1: are printing parts that are, you know, around the size
Speaker 1: of like a softball or smaller. You can get larger ones,
Speaker 1: especially in industrial settings, that are able to print bigger materials,
Speaker 1: but most of the stuff you'd be printing at home
Speaker 1: would be replacement parts, which could be really useful. I
Speaker 1: mean imagine that. Imagine you go and you buy furniture
Speaker 1: at some some store that where you assemble the furniture
Speaker 1: at home. I'm thinking of a store in particular where
Speaker 1: you buy things and you go home, and then you
Speaker 1: have lots of parts to deal with. While you're there,
Speaker 1: you can buy Spedish meatballs at the same time. Perhaps
Speaker 1: that might be something that's also available at this store.
Speaker 1: So many fun discussions with your spouse about how exactly
Speaker 1: to put that together. Yeah, yeah, I have. I have
Speaker 1: bought a desk and uh and installed the drawer backwards
Speaker 1: before um, which is fine if you're sitting on the
Speaker 1: other side of the desk, but there was a wall there,
Speaker 1: so that made it somewhat problematic. We actually had to
Speaker 1: take the whole thing apart again. Uh yeah, of course
Speaker 1: with the three D printer, maybe you could just cleared
Speaker 1: the cash and and restart the print. Well, really, you
Speaker 1: would end up assembling stuff anyway. You would print out
Speaker 1: the actual individual parts and assemble it. But that's that's
Speaker 1: my point, is that what happens if you get home
Speaker 1: and one of those brackets or whatever is broken. It
Speaker 1: might mean that you have to take a trip all
Speaker 1: the way back to the store to exchange one out.
Speaker 1: But if you have a three D printer and you
Speaker 1: have the the information you need, you could print out
Speaker 1: the replacement part. In fact, we might see furniture stores
Speaker 1: include this information in future purchases, where when you buy
Speaker 1: something they go ahead and hand you the digital file
Speaker 1: for the replacement parts. Not necessarily for the whole piece
Speaker 1: of furniture, but for things like, well, if there's a
Speaker 1: if there's a bracket that's missing, or if there's if
Speaker 1: there's a screw that is that the that's not quite right.
Speaker 1: Here's here's what you need to print out a new one.
Speaker 1: Use this code to redeem your bolt. Yeah, exactly. And
Speaker 1: that's the kind of thing where I could see that
Speaker 1: being a lot easier for for companies where they're saying,
Speaker 1: all right, well, we're not giving away the full design.
Speaker 1: It's not like you can print it from bottom to
Speaker 1: the top completely, but you can print the individual pieces
Speaker 1: that hold everything together. Then I think would be less problematic.
Speaker 1: And even the same way that you have software upgrades
Speaker 1: on your on your OS that you can just download
Speaker 1: from the internet these days, rather than having to go
Speaker 1: out and buy an entirely new version quite so often. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if if something, if someone decides that this part was
Speaker 1: a little bit faultier, this, this corner could be done
Speaker 1: a little bit better, then you can just have have
Speaker 1: an upgrade. You could have a firmware upgrade to your furniture. Boy,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure so many people have fallen down in
Speaker 1: this chair. It's really time we see a patch exactly.
Speaker 1: Or or this table. This table always ends up being wobbly,
Speaker 1: so here's the patch to repair it. Uh. Yeah. This
Speaker 1: this also brings to mind. I mean that other solutions
Speaker 1: that we might see in the future are variations on
Speaker 1: Digital Rights Management dr M. This is the protections that
Speaker 1: companies used to put on digital files so that they
Speaker 1: can't be freely distributed. Essentially, they cannot be stolen and
Speaker 1: then distributed across networks. Not that it stops people from trying.
Speaker 1: But we've seen it on music, we've seen it in movies,
Speaker 1: we've seen it in video games, we've seen it in
Speaker 1: all sorts of digital files. I expect we'll see something
Speaker 1: similar to that to three D printing files, especially for
Speaker 1: those that belong to specific companies. I don't know that
Speaker 1: they will ever be able to get around the problem
Speaker 1: of someone getting hold of an object and then scanning it.
Speaker 1: That might be another issue, although they could get around
Speaker 1: that depending upon what sort of materials they used. That
Speaker 1: maybe that becomes a way of specializing to use materials
Speaker 1: that are harder to replicate on a three D printing scale. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: they've got some time to think about this, because while
Speaker 1: three D printing is a really exciting path to the future,
Speaker 1: it's a long ways off for us to have the
Speaker 1: ability to really have a machine in your garage that
Speaker 1: does all this stuff right. But once we get there,
Speaker 1: it will be really exciting because if we get to
Speaker 1: a point where we can print an electric circuit. That
Speaker 1: means that we could actually print a three D printer
Speaker 1: with a three D printer, and then if I if
Speaker 1: I exactly so, so you get together with your buddies
Speaker 1: and you're like, Okay, this three D printer is ten grand,
Speaker 1: but if we all throw in money, then what we
Speaker 1: can do is with the first one will print out
Speaker 1: enough for everybody. So for a small investment, we all
Speaker 1: get a three D printer because all we have to
Speaker 1: do is print another one and then put it together.
Speaker 1: I mean, all all we have to do is a
Speaker 1: little that's kind of glossing over as you feel comfortable
Speaker 1: assembling a three D printer. That's a that's a possibility.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know the thing I'm really excited about
Speaker 1: is this will allow us to really customize our our environments.
Speaker 1: You know, we will be able to either perch us
Speaker 1: a plan from a company, or someone has uploaded something
Speaker 1: through creative commons that we can use, or we've designed
Speaker 1: something ourselves, and we can you know, put stuff in
Speaker 1: our homes that really kind of fits our personalities. So
Speaker 1: I have a question for both of you. Yes, Joe,
Speaker 1: are you well, I was just gonna say it fits
Speaker 1: your personality or just fits your home. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you've ever had the trouble that that
Speaker 1: somebody in your house sees, Oh, I really really want
Speaker 1: this couch, but you go when you measure the wall
Speaker 1: and there's just not room for it. The couches six
Speaker 1: inches too long. It can't go there. Well, what if
Speaker 1: you could download a modified, you know, foot shorter couch. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I just assume that other people won't ever
Speaker 1: visit me, So I just get the Jonathan sized everything.
Speaker 1: One one single dirty mattress on the floor. It's actually two.
Speaker 1: That's nice, that's sweet, clean ish. But yes, if you
Speaker 1: had the ability to print any one object, whether it's
Speaker 1: furniture or something else, what would it be, Joe, give
Speaker 1: me your answer. Well, I was just thinking about this,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if you've ever seen one of these,
Speaker 1: but try and picture it. Uh. It's from some time
Speaker 1: in the ancient world. I know, at least pre medieval Um.
Speaker 1: There are these Thracian battle helmets that they find I guess,
Speaker 1: uh somewhere in Europe. Again, I don't know exactly the
Speaker 1: ancient Thracian battle helmets. I guess from the time of
Speaker 1: the Roman Empire, and they they look like insects. It
Speaker 1: is so crazy to imagine that a couple of thousand
Speaker 1: years ago, you could be standing in a field and
Speaker 1: you'd see somebody running at you with one of these on.
Speaker 1: And I want to be that guy. I want to
Speaker 1: put that helmet on and look like a crazy insect.
Speaker 1: Can you answer my question? I wanted to know if
Speaker 1: you wanted to be the guy wearing the helmet or
Speaker 1: the guy seeing the guy running at them, and don't
Speaker 1: I mean, I wouldn't be carrying some you know, spear
Speaker 1: or anything, just like but the not necessarily believe it's
Speaker 1: a great It's a great, It would be great Halloween
Speaker 1: costume would be a great, great initial thing to see
Speaker 1: in one of those Harlem Shake videos that are making
Speaker 1: the rounds right now on YouTube. Here's the thing though, again,
Speaker 1: without these authenticators, I mean, would it be that much
Speaker 1: easier to fabricate archaeological artifacts? Yeah? Interesting question. Water slides,
Speaker 1: water slides, giant fancy water slides, so you can design
Speaker 1: your own, you can design your Yeah, wow, no you
Speaker 1: thought big. I was thinking of an object that I
Speaker 1: saw in a documentary once. It's from casual glance. It
Speaker 1: looks like a little silver ball, but actually this uh,
Speaker 1: this kind of drill thing comes out of it and
Speaker 1: then it flies around. I think I've seen that documentary, Yeah, phantasm,
Speaker 1: that's the one. I'm thinking, Yeah, that's that's I want
Speaker 1: one of those because you know, occasionally there's a knock
Speaker 1: at the door, right win super naturals on and I
Speaker 1: don't want to have to chase them off myself, so
Speaker 1: a little now, granted, making it fly and stuff that
Speaker 1: would obviously be another problem. So just printing it would
Speaker 1: just be the first step. But that's okay, that's okay.
Speaker 1: I just need to make progress on this. That's what
Speaker 1: I'm looking for. Are we doing an episode on that ball?
Speaker 1: You know, we've talked about it. I don't know that
Speaker 1: that's ever going to happen, but hey, you know, in
Speaker 1: the future, specifically the future of this show, we're hoping
Speaker 1: to have the audience start a conversation with us, to
Speaker 1: really talk with us about the future and what they're
Speaker 1: excited about and the sort of stuff they want to
Speaker 1: hear about in future episodes. So, guys, here's here's what
Speaker 1: I suggest. Go to our website. It's forward thinking dot com,
Speaker 1: and that's f double thinking dot Com and there you're
Speaker 1: going to see the video series, you're going to have
Speaker 1: the audio podcast. There, there are the blog posts. They
Speaker 1: are there, and we're really trying to engage you in
Speaker 1: this conversation about the future. Find out what is it
Speaker 1: that you think is really exciting. What's the stuff that's
Speaker 1: right around the corner that has you just just waiting
Speaker 1: for the future to get here. And that's the kind
Speaker 1: of stuff we want to talk about. We really are
Speaker 1: excited about it, and we hope you are too, So
Speaker 1: let us know, get in touch with us and we
Speaker 1: will talk to you again really soon. For more on
Speaker 1: this topic and the future of technology, visit forward thinking
Speaker 1: dot Com, brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places,