MakerBot

MakerBot founder Bre Pettis kicked off the first day of the South By Southwest Interactive festival (SXSW) running from March 8-17 in Austin, Texas, by introducing a desktop 3D scanner dubbed the MakerBot Digitizer designed to let users scan a physical item and digitize it so it can be replicated using a 3D printer.  Read More

What could be better than a 3D-printed model of yourself? The answer of course is a 3D-printed model of yourself filled with candy. That's exactly what Hot Pop Factory recently made, when it created several working Pez dispensers fashioned after individual people's heads.  Read More

Makerbot is holding the grand opening of its first retail store today, and it has partnered with ShapeShot to provide a novel 3D photo booth. The system uses digital cameras to capture your mug from a variety of positions, which it analyzes to create a three-dimensional model. The process only takes a few minutes and costs just five dollars. Visitors can have 3D prints made at the store, including a bust of their very own face.  Read More

The World Technology Network summoned leading thinkers to New York's TIME Conference Center on Monday and Tuesday to announce the winners of its 2012 World Technology Summit & Awards. The awards showcase the work of innovators across a diverse array of industry sectors and scientific fields. Gizmag reveals the list of winners, which includes no shortage of familiar faces.  Read More

Makerbot's fourth generation desktop 3D printer was launched yesterday, and it's very impressive indeed. The Makerbot Replicator 2 continues to raise the bar for at-home 3D printing with increased build volume, new software and significantly finer layer resolution than the company's previous offering.  Read More

In the days before CD, MP3 or iTunes, when Sony's Walkman was just about the only mobile music player worth having, hip young music lovers engaged in the painstakingly intricate process of recording a 45-minute-per-side compilation of favorite tunes onto an audio cassette tape. A kind of forefather to today's MP3 playlist, the mix tape was about creating a unique musical identity, an expression of personality that could be shared with those near and dear. Technology marches relentlessly on and tapes are now all-but extinct, replaced by digital files on smartphones and media players. The essence of the compact cassette mix tape has now been given a modern update by the folks from the MakerBot Industries Applications team in Brooklyn, New York, with the launch of the 3D-printed Mixtape do-it-yourself music player kit.  Read More

The pieces in Joseph Larson's 3D-printable chess set fit together into what he describes as "the ultimate chess fighting robot" - two of them, actually; with inverted knights for feet and bishops for hands.  Read More

The folks at MakerBot Industries have not exactly been resting on their laurels since causing a stir at CES last year with the Thing-o-Matic 3D printer. Even though the original small object creation device would still see the jaws of most people dropping in wonder, the company has now unveiled a new model at CES 2012 called the Replicator that is not only capable of fabricating much bigger objects than its predecessor, but can also do so in two colors at the same time.  Read More

If you’ve ever bought a pet hermit crab, then you may remember also having to buy several sea shells with it. This is because the crabs don’t have shells of their own, and instead have to find empty shells from other creatures and use those. As a hermit crab grows, it’ll need to upsize to larger shells, hence the need to supply it with multiple choices. Unfortunately, every empty shell gathered for the pet trade is one less for the wild hermit crabs to move into. In places where the beaches have been picked clean, the crabs have reportedly resorted to using things such as bottles and shotgun shells. That’s where Miles Lightwood’s Project Shellter comes in – he’s hoping to design 3D printed shells for use in the pet industry, and is seeking ideas from interested artists and designers.  Read More