I love design. I think design is making our world a better and prettier place. Common things are becoming more beautiful every day and design is making our interaction with the world more care free. Many things that used to be complicated and ugly are now easy to use & attractive. There is one notable exception however, faucets. Faucets (or taps if you will) used to be simple. Now faucets suck.

There used to be just one type of  spouty thing where the water came out accompanied by a hot and cold tap. They were pretty much universal, and more importantly worked universally. Want water? Turn a tap. You want more cold water? Turn the cold water tap. Want more warm water? Turn the warm water tap.

First these Grohe things started appearing everywhere. With one handle you could adjust the water pressure by moving it upward or adjust the temperature by moving it horizontally. This was fine.

But then, all these different design faucets started conquering the world. They annoy me. They annoy me a lot. I recently spent 30 seconds frantically waving my hand in front of a faucet in a hotel to get the water to work only to find out that it was not an infrared faucet. Instead a minuscule pylon that looked ornamental was meant to regulate water flow. Dozens of times I’ve stared perplexed at some shiny chrome design protrusion while my hands are lathered in soap and my mind draws a complete blank on how to operate the thing in front of me. Design faucets are beautiful but in their path towards resembling alien artifacts, Terminator parts and the shiniest things in the world have made themselves too complicated to be used consistently.

You have infrared ones, you have push button ones, there are levers that go up and down, levers that go in all sorts of directions, knobs to turn, knobs to push back, dials to turn, dials to turn counterclockwise, levers to rotate, buttons to rotate etc.

I know designers want to make useful and beautiful things but faucets have turned into an exercise in pure form that in my mind makes them less useful overall as devices that easily deliver water to the user. So, designers please make faucets simple again.

So apart from the inconvenience, why does the unnecessary complexity of faucets vex me so? Aren’t I just a tad too young for what could be construed as a “get off my lawn” blog post? When faucets became high end design items their designers were given design freedom. 3D printing will give that same level of freedom to many different designers and evermore products. I’m hoping that designers use this freedom wisely to make beautiful, useful and easy to use things.  I worry however that it might also be an opportunity for design to make more things that suck.

Images used under Creative Commons, Attribution: Samirluther, Orcmid, Kalleboo, Charles & Hudson, Charles & Hudson, Charles & Hudson &  HighFitHome

Components are becoming ever more complex and more integrated. They are no longer built to last but rather built to fail. Things that we could previously disassemble or assemble have now been supplanted by mysterious chip boards hiding encapsulated functionality. The mechanical world is not only being replaced by electronics, there is also software, lots of software. There are approximately 100,000,000 lines of code in a current upscale automobile. All of these things serve as layers of abstraction between us and the things that power our world.

As technology becomes more ubiquitous it is at the same time becoming less visible. We hide it behind GUI’s, casings, brushed aluminum; stuffing it all away in the recesses of something. Design hides functionality and the inner workings. It seems that at the moment the golden rule is, “as long as your product looks like an attractive designy thing that completely obscures what it is intended for”, you’re on the right path.

The Maker movement is a reaction to this. People want to open things, change them, repair them and work with their hands again. Another response is Steampunk (as a cosplay movement (and I mean this in a nice way)).  Steampunk is refreshingly mechanical and refreshingly visible technology. This technology is also technology we can feel more at ease with because its obviousness makes it less of a threat, we still feel we can understand and control this.

The same cannot be said of our microwaves and cell phones. The things that surround us are mass produced complex things that hide technology through design and commodity components.  As people grapple with feeling out of touch with technology new inventions are being introduced all the time, at an ever accelerating pace. These inventions might all seem to inexorably lead to more abandonment angst but one particular invention has in it the capacity to fundamentally alter man’s relationship with technology and modern society.

This technology is 3D printing. Some people might see 3D printing as just another technology, like WiFi, USB, LCD even the laser but it is not. 3D printing is a process where an object is built up layer by layer by a machine. It’s useless for Happy Meal toys. Too expensive.  It has a limited place in our mass production oriented society.  It can however be used to cost effectively make unique things. 3D printing will grow because there is real demand for unique things at the moment and as more unique things are made this will stimulate demand for more unique things.

You are a unique thing. And right now people are working on printing hearts, livers, bones, teeth and skin cells. In my mind there is no impediment to being able to 3D print any particular part of the human body. Just to be clear, I mean working part of your body. So an actual working heart, piece of skin etc. Furthermore, your expensive sneakers come in only 13 different sizes. A 3D printed sole, a 3D printed hearing aid, a 3D printed grip, a 3D printed steering wheel, a 3D printed remote control etc. All of those items would work better for you because they fit you better.

The things you cherish tend to be unique also. Jewelry, high end lamps, art and gifts are just some of the tens of thousands of things people are making with 3D printing. I still don’t know if “everyone” will own a 3D printer at one point or if everyone will use 3D printing. I’m sure that people who now own Dremels will eventually own 3D printers. I’m also sure that all the people who now own Freitag bags will at one point all try 3D printing. I’m sure that there are lots of products that are eminently suited for 3D printing and that there are many others that are much more efficiently mass produced.

3D printing gives consumers control over the technology they use & lets people create and make things exactly as they should be.  All of this means that the 3D printing revolution is something that is happening right now at this moment.

3D printing won’t be bigger than the internet, but it will be bigger than the Segway.

Images used under Creeative Commons Attribution from: Aperturismo, Digital_Rampage, Steevithak, MagnuMicah & IntensivCarryChair.

Smart, a maker of small cars for real estate agents and a part of Daimler AG, has a humungeously failworthy ad campaign in Belgium today. In today’s Metro newspaper Smart has devoted two entire adjacent columns in the paper to their “join a clan campaign.” You can choose to join a clan member of the whites or you can choose to become a clan member for the blacks. The copy reads, “white or black its probably the only question you still have.” Smart have made a great website too called Smart Black or White where you can choose which clan you would like to belong too. A choice results in a “welcome to the White Side of Smart page.” Seriously? Did anyone bring their brain to work over at Daimler today? The Smart tagline “open your mind” might be directed at me today but probably should be a nice pointer for their marketing people too.

I’ve been fascinated as long as I can remember by how just putting a symbol on something can considerably increase its perceived value. Recently I travelled to Dubai and Istanbul.  In both places I found examples of “brand value” that to me illustrate some of the challenges brands will face in an age of 3d printing. This will be the first post in a series discussing those implications.

In the impossibly vast Dubai Mall a jeweler, is selling a $193,221 cell phone.  As far as I could discern this is not one of these idiotic “world’s most expensive hamburger” marketing stunts. These phones are actual products, meant to sell and this makes them far more remarkable than a stunt. The hardware in it is pretty standard and it didn’t seem to even have a camera.  Look at the thing, it’s not even a smart phone.  Imagine how expensive it could be if you could do super advanced stuff with it, like check your email.

It’s a ridiculous thing for sure, flanked by it’s $58,246 and $32,927 cousins.

But a few thoughts came to mind:

• In this price category what exactly can established luxury brands offer customers that this jeweler can’t? For an extra $50,000 completely customized hardware and a software UI made to the customer’s specifications is a real option.
• The same mall sells watches that fetch over a $1,000,000. The phone can tell time and call, it’s a bargain by comparison.
• The price we pay for gold and diamonds is just as silly as the premium we pay for brands. We designated gold and diamonds to be a store of perceived value. Their “true” worth is far removed from actual production costs, just like an Armani shirt.
• For Roman Abramovich and people like him the phone could be an impulse buy. It would have the same relative impact on his net worth as buying a hamburger would be on mine.
• For many generations now grandparent’s luxuries have become grandchildren’s staples.
• Now imagine for a second that the wealth of customization options open to the jeweler were open to you. Imagine that you are Roman Abramovich out for a leisurely stroll in the Dubai Mall. Take price out of any decision. See the phone, buy it. Custom software, custom hardware, custom functionality, ability to design your own. No limits, no compromises, any functionality, anything is as you’d want it. N=1 and 1=aNything. This is how the future will be. A wealth of choice over every aspect of every single object we could own. To be able to make anything precisely as we see fit and to make anything fit us precisely. To me this is an achievable goal that we should be able to reach within my lifetime.

As for dependencies and qualifications, there are none, bar my health. Now excuse me while I go do some much needed sit-ups.

There are several signs like the one above hanging in my local shopping street in Amsterdam. They signify that the surrounding area is protected by DNA spray.  Stores such as my supermarket the Albert Heijn have installed sprayers so that when a robbery occurs the robbers will be sprayed by synthetic DNA.

The DNA is invisible to the naked eye but lights up under UV light (leading to subsequent exposure under the backlight of  the Amsterdam club scene I expect). The DNA can not be removed but instead degrades around a week after the spraying. Robbers can easily be found and identified and by comparing the DNA evidence it can be established that you were at the robbery.

Powerful and scary stuff. Dutch company SelectaDNA makes the technology and says it costs around 1700 Euro for a store to implement the technology. You can see a video (in Dutch) below.

Around a minute in  you can see the effects of the DNA spray under UV light.

If you’re looking for an exciting job in the 3D printing industry, I’ve got something for you. Bathsheba Grossman is looking for a new business manager.

Bathsheba is one of the first artists to use the 3D printing medium. Her work is exciting, fun and caters to geeks, tech people and mathematicians. She is established, gets press including Boing Boing and other large blogs and has been selling 3D printed work for years. But, she wants to step things up a notch and she’s looking for you…

Are you the person that can organize, streamline and pull her business into its next phase? Are you a strategy and execution person? Are you a online whiz that will improve her sales? Or are you a PR & marketing whiz  that will spread Batheba’s name wider around the world? Or best of all are you someone that combines these skills?

The job pays nothing but you will get a revenue share. So this is for people that are ambitious and confident. Bathsheba is respected in the industry and her work has a large following.  She is also a wonderful person. This is a huge opportunity for the right someone. This is one of those kick yourself repeatedly if  missed opportunities. Please pass this opportunity on to people you know!

I’m convinced that the future of manufacturing will lie in digital materials and rapid assembly (or VoxelFab as I’m completely self-servingly calling it from time to time).  The work of  Jon Hiller and Hod Lipson of Cornell inspired me to create this blog and I currently believe that they are well on their way to showing us a glimpse of the future of  manufacturing .  A good overview is this concept video of theirs showing you how a rapid assembler  will work.

On the one hand you will have Voxels, the building blocks for making things. A rapid assembler will select and organize these Voxels and build them layer by layer into an object. Because you can select  different Voxels you can give your object lots of different material properties, even properties that have been impossible. Voxels will then be true digital materials.

You could for example make a plastic casing that is weakly magnetic only in certain areas, has different softness and hardness throughout is water permeable only when upside down. Or even develop completely new properties.  Hod & Jon have a page outlining their research here and it mentions creating materials with a negative Poisson ratio.  This would mean making an elastic material that widens as it stretches.

Since a Voxel acts as a basic building block for fabrication billions can be made in series and so the costs of the build material can be kept low while making varieties possible.  Like basic ingredients to a recipe the variety will lie in the unique combinations of these blocks. Because the Voxels have predefined accurate measurements and because they are designed to align the overall accuracy of the process is very high and scalable.  Hod & Jon use the example of a child who might not be very accurate but whose creations are accurate because she is constructing using LEGO bricks.

Currently their experiments have even shown that they can build simple objects from the Voxels. They can then dissolve the binder that holds the Voxels together and then re-use them.

This technology has so much promise that I’m compelled to follow its every move and I hope you do to!

A lot of you have probably already heard of Chinese B2B e-commerce site Alibaba, but just in case any of you have not I’d like to introduce you to one of the most insane & useful websites in the world.

Alibaba is a site where you can source goods from Chinese companies. On Alibaba and Alibaba Express you can get things as diverse as Marine Diesel Engines, RC Airplane Engines,  motherboards, solar plastic flowers, GPS tracking devices, mushrooms, children’s socks & full sized electric cars.

Crazyest thing I’ve found so far is Europium, “is very valuable material in control rods for nuclear reactors due to that it can absorb more neutrons than any other elements. Europium, atomic no.: 63, symbol as Eu, weight at 151.96, is utilized primarily for its unique luminescent behavior.” $686 per Kilo, knock yourself out.

The breadth of offering on Alibaba is unprecedented. It will make you fundamentally reconsider the price of everything around you. I never understood the name until I realized that the site is indeed a treasure trove and the prices make you feel like a thief.

If you need anything at all, check Alibaba first.  A few pointers:

1. A lot of times you will be negotiating via Google Translate with people. Keep your sentences unambiguous.
2. Check the history and any information you can find about the companies. Use Alibaba’s TrustPass feature to also check out companies. Alibaba Gold Suppliers have been verified.
3. Always use escrow.
4. Shipping is a large cost component for a lot of items.
5. The wholesale site Alibaba Express is easier to use as a consumer.
6. The site isn’t intended for consumers so you might want to get together with some friends and split a large order of something.
7. The site isn’t intended for consumers so some kind of LLC, SA or any kind of company are handy.

SMT (Surface Mount technology) Pick & Place Machines are machines that take a PCB (Printed Circuit Board) that has been screen printed with glue-ey gooey solder and add components to it. The machines basically put the the right stuff on the right place on series of PCBs.  They put the little LED light right where it needs to be for example.

These machines have been a mainstay of PCB production for many years.  Some SMT Machines such as Assembléon’s A-Series can place 111,000 components an hour to an accuracy of 25 micron.

Swiss Essemtec has just introduced the Cobra, notable not only for combining speed with flexibility but also the industry’s first real foray into design. The Cobra can be filled with the next job while the current run is in progress.

The first video gives you a good look at how an SMT Pick & Place machine works. The second video is a slick one outlining the Essemtec Cobra.

So, why am I so interested with SMT pick and place machines? If we are to use combinatorial manufacturing and combine 3D printing with mass production technologies, some process has to put it all together.

In combinatorial manufacturing the main virtue of mass production is combined with the main virtue of 3D printing. Mass production can produce many identical components cost effectively. 3D printing can produce one unique item cost effectively. By combining the two you get an item that packs a lot of functionality but is unique.  And the magical technology that can string the two together is pick  & place.

TechCrunch had a great video showing off Autodesk Fluid FX on the IPad. The video is very trippy by Autodesk standards and I think the music gets ridiculously annoying after a few minutes, but  Fluid FX is very impressive. Also at $1.99 you should get it just because its four decimal places to the right of other stuff you can get from Autodesk.

This marks another move by Autodesk into the mainstream.  If they’re successful in this space then they’re going to look more and more like a wannabe  “Adobe for 3D.” These moves put them up against Dassault and in my mind make them an a very tempting acquisition target for Adobe.