Month: August 2014

The Everything Factory: Let’s Open a Factory That Does It All

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The decision to close a VegasTechFund company due to over-ambition is beyond ironic. As I’ve written before, Hsieh’s plans to regenerate downtown Vegas are cursed by over promising, often from Hsieh himself.

Many people have approached me over the years saying “We want to create Blah Blah that will revitalize manufacturing and provide all the resources hardware startups need”. What resources? What the what…Everything! That is impossible. Good factories specialize in various capabilities. No one does everything. We have an ecosystem of partners that provide the capabilities. Why? Because we want the right factory to help with the outcome and we alone can not do it all

via Factorli killed by VegasTechFund due to over-ambition, because irony is dead too | PandoDaily.

Will it 3D Print??

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“There are barriers primarily in the usability of the entire stack, software, machines, materials,” Pickens said. “No-one has succeeded in making a 3D printer where you just ‘hit print’ and get the object you want. Various amounts of post-processing have to take place that make the experience frustrating for users. In particular the machines require tuning and babysitting to function properly and often the failure modes are due to engineering flaws that could have been solved.”

I am not holding my breath till 2016 to see if this is solved. Seems that more sensors and software are needed to track the position of the extruder and placement of materials. I hope it happens. It would be cool to have an actual replicator on hand.

via What’s holding back 3D printing from fulfilling its promise? | ZDNet.