Wired’s long-time editor in chief, Chris Anderson, announced on Friday that he was leaving the magazine to become CEO of his DIY-drone company, 3D Robotics. This move comes a month after the release of his latest book, Makers: The New Industrial Revolution. In an interview last week (and a brief follow-up after Friday’s announcement), Anderson talked with me about today’s biggest revolution in how and where we actually make things. If the last few decades have been about big digital forces — the Internet, social media — he notes that the future will be about applying all of that in the real world. “Wondrous as the Web is,” he writes, “it doesn’t compare to the real world. Not in economic size (online commerce is less than 10 percent of all sales) and not in its place in our lives. The digital revolution has been largely limited to screens.” But, he adds, the salient fact remains that “we live in homes, drive in cars, and work in offices.” And it is that physical part of the economy that is undergoing the biggest and most fundamental change.
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A neat article, and I will read more later. It is really unfortunate though that the first dramatic chart shows “injection molding” with costs of a mold and materials, and then “3d printing” with the cost only of materials. I’m pretty sure there is cost of a printer in there, and a costs based analysis would include it.
Not to say that investment in a printer isn’t fine in many situations, but it shouldn’t be … hidden.
A neat article, and I will read more later. It is really unfortunate though that the first dramatic chart shows “injection molding” with costs of a mold and materials, and then “3d printing” with the cost only of materials. I’m pretty sure there is cost of a printer in there, and a costs based analysis would include it.
Not to say that investment in a printer isn’t fine in many situations, but it shouldn’t be … hidden.