New Article up at Pragati
I have a new piece up at Pragati Magazine this morning, which focuses on a book review of Makers by Chris Anderson:
….If anything, Anderson has managed to understate the velocity with which the technology is advancing and the creative uses to which users are putting their machines. Since the publication ofMakers, a succession of news stories have revealed everything from Formlabs’ slickly designed Form 1 machine to users printing functional (if fragile) assault rifles, car bodies and biomedical surgical replacements for missing pieces of the human skull. One gets the sense that the genie is out of the bottle.
Anderson is not merely making a technologically oriented argument , but a profoundly cultural one. In his view, the existence of the Maker movement, operating on the collaborative, “open-source” ethos is an iterative, accelerative driver of economic change that complements the technology. Anderson writes: “…In short, the Maker Movement shares three characteristics, all of which are transformative:
Read the rest here.
March 15th, 2013 at 2:15 pm
(Make sure the link has a colon in it)
March 15th, 2013 at 2:21 pm
One of the things I find most fascinating about the rate of technological change (and it’s particularly applicable to 3D printing) is that our tech is rapidly outstripping the ethics that govern how we behave with that technology. The recently finished TV show Fringe was based on the question of “What happens if we just get on with it without worrying about the implications?” and had some fantastic episodes (and as many bad ones) about the results, essentially concluding that without ethics science will doom us to some dark dystopian future.
I don’t think most realise how juvenile 3D printing is, or what it’s implications are when we move beyond the current phase and can do high resolution multi material printing in the home. Right now the tech is in it’s “cute” phase, but we’re rapidly approaching the “Napster” point at which the technology causes a paradigm shift in how we live out lives.
Just my two cents on the topic, thoroughly enjoyed the piece as always.
March 15th, 2013 at 2:34 pm
Good review. I’m 1/2way through the book so far, and you’ve nailed what I’ve read.
” the Makers are akin to the Linux crowd and the hacktivists in the coming internet of things” – interesting analysis. That would be a far narrower + marginal population than what the book’s early chapter see – i.e., everyone a Maker.
March 15th, 2013 at 6:21 pm
Fixed! Thanks Bryan!
.
Chris and Bryan – you have both hit on it. The device for the generational leap – the home 3D printer that has an interface that allows grandma and the kids to build things that today only expert designers can make on very expensive, high end machines is not here yet. Form1 is a stepping stone but it isn’t the iPhone of 3D fabrication. But it isn’t far away
March 15th, 2013 at 6:57 pm
Bryan – re: your Google reader post http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/35220.html#more-35220