Scientists accidentally 3D printed the world’s first liquid magnets
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Magnetic liquids could open up a whole host of interesting applications, most of which we can’t imagine yet, but shape shifting robots could be one of those. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. Let’s face it – polymorphic...
Featured Futurist: How 4D Printing Will Shift the Shape of Manufacturing, SAP
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The way we design, imagine, and build products is being revolutionised by the emergence of creative machines and new sci-fi like manufacturing technologies. Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More and connect with Matthew. In a brief period, 3D printing — the process...
New Nestle service uses your DNA to sell you personalised supplements
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As genetic sequencing gets cheaper and easier companies are seeing an opportunity to cash in on it. Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More. In 2017 a company called Food Ink, who used 3D printers to print gourmet food for...
NASA steps into the unknown with project to 3D print spacecraft in orbit
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Launching equipment and satellites into orbit is expensive, space limited, and slow, so NASA wants to eliminate these bottlenecks and 3D print and assemble objects in space. Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More. A little while ago I discussed...
New 3D printed material heals itself after being cut in half
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF This is one of the first combinations of 3D Printing and Self-Healing materials, and it’s how many materials could be made in the future. Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More. Recently teams of researchers showed off their self-healing computer...
An entire South American community will be 3D printed in just 24 hours
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Houses used to be expensive and time consuming to build, those days are fast disappearing. Following on swiftly from the developments in France, where a family became the first in the world to move into their own 3D printed home, and in Dubai who...
Scientists are teaching robots to share code and evolve just like animals
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF We all too often think of machines, and robots, as static things, but new breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, manufacturing, and materials are giving them the power to evolve. Bacteria do it, viruses do it. Worms, mammals, even bees do it. So our parents tell...
First of a kind material lets solar panels generate electricity from snow
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As our knowledge of materials and how they behave improves we can generate electricity from almost anything. Scientists have announced that they’ve developed a first of its kind material that generates electricity from nothing other than, wait for it… snow. Based upon the principles...
Major 3D printing advance boosts LiON battery capacities by over 400 percent
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As our ability to 3D print objects at the nano scale improves it gives us the ability to create dramatically better batteries with huge surface areas. Scientists from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Missouri University of Science and Technology have used 3D Printing to produce high capacity Lithium...
Evolving robots discover new ways to walk thanks to AI advances
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF People often think of robots as static things, with fixed forms that don’t evolve, but scientists are creating robots that can evolve to suit different situations. Evolution is a trip. On the one hand, it’s a seemingly simple mechanism -those best fitted to their environment have...
3D Printing with sound, new tech opens door to printed cosmetics, food, and drugs
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As 3D printing becomes more popular the ability to control the size of droplets opens the door to 3D printing everything from cosmetics and materials, to pharmaceutical drugs. Harvard University has announced that its researchers have developed a way to print objects using sound....
Star Trek like Replicator manufacturing tech unveiled for first time
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The way we manufacture products today is wasteful and unsustainable, so we’re developing new ways to make the things we love. Recently I wrote an article about a new form of 3D Printing, called 3D Holographic Printing, printing with light not conventional materials, that...
US researchers have found a safe way to 3D print explosives
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The ability to 3D print explosives is a turning point for the military and other industries that rely on explosives, but it also opens up a debate on the potential dangers of the uses of the technology. According to new research out of the...
Researchers 3D printed a working spinal chord implant in 1.6 seconds
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Today if you break your spine, you’re paralysed, but paralysis is increasingly no longer for life. 3D Bio-Printing, an offshoot of its better known cousin 3D Printing, lets scientists manufacture everything from real bones, cartilage, corneas and kidneys, to hearts, ovaries, skin, and teeth, by laying...
Here’s how NASA plans to build on Mars and the Moon
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As the cost of launching equipment and people into space plummets the reality of colonising other planets is getting closer. It’s one thing to send an astronaut to Mars to be an extraterrestrial tourist for a few hours. But if humanity wants to actually...
A creative AI designed NASA’s next spider-like interplanetary lander
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As humans we tend to believe that creativity is our exclusive domain, but AI is muscling in in a big way, and creative machines are improving all the time. Over the past couple of years I’ve been banging the drum, through my articles and...
Robot swarms help scientists 3D print the buildings of the future
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As more companies explore using 3D printers to print buildings it’s impractical to use just one large printer, so scientists are experimenting with swarms. Today there’s more talk than ever before of using 3D printers to print all sorts of buildings, from small houses, and...
3D printed fashion takes over New York Fashion Week
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF 3D printed clothes can be customised and printed on demand using sustainable new materials, giving fashion designers new options and reducing the industry’s environmental impact. Downloadable 3D printed personalised sustainable fashion. I think you’ll agree it’s quite a catchy phrase – or at least...
US Navy puts AI brains into its 3D printers to make them “creative and intelligent”
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF By combining the power of AI with 3D printing the US military hopes to revolutionise how products are designed and made everywhere. One thing about aircraft, especially ones that fly from aircraft carriers, that are increasingly being turned into floating factories and flying fortresses,...
Researchers 3D print human corneas in world first
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Tens of millions of people a year go blind because of a lack of donor corneas, this work will, literally, give them a new outlook on life. There are so many parts of the human body now that can be 3D printed that it’s...
