[LINK] Your next house may come from a printer

[David Boxall]

That'll be some printer. Takes product piracy to new heights, while 
presenting fascinating opportunities.
<http://www.itnews.com.au/newsstory.aspx?CIaNID=43025&eid=1&edate=20061204>

"The era of desktop manufacturing is upon us, thanks to advances in 3-D 
printing technology. Just as laser printers in the 1980s moved from 
service bureaus into homes, sparking the desktop publishing revolution, 
3-D printers — which render computer files in three-dimensional plaster 
— are poised to reshape how many products are designed and made."
...
"While 3-D printing has been used for prototyping products, it is 
increasingly being used for finished products, says Roger Kelesoglu, 
director of customer development for Z Corp., who points to architecture 
and medicine as two fields where this is common."
...
"Tomorrow's businesses may find that 3-D printing has compounded their 
problems. As the digital and physical worlds converge, online copying 
will become indistinguishable from many kinds of offline manufacturing."

-- 
David Boxall | When a distinguished but elderly
              | scientist states that something is
              | possible, he is almost certainly
              | right. When he states that
              | something is impossible, he is
              | very probably wrong.
                                --Arthur C. Clarke