We've got several 3D printers at the Make offices and they are in near-constant use. Here's a neat 3D flexible bracelet (source file here - thanks, John!) that I saw on the workbench. I'm not sure who printed it, or if it really is a bracelet or a component for a mechanism. Whatever it is, I like it! Check out Make's Ultimate Guide to 3D Printing here.

Some months ago, Chris Anderson wrote to me to let me know that he was working on a book called Makers, and given that I'd written a well-known novel on similar themes with the same title, did I mind? Of course I didn't -- for one thing, having already published many stories with the same title as famous stories that came before them, I was hardly in a position to object! But more importantly, I was interested in Anderson's take on the subject.

I've thoroughly enjoyed Anderson's two earlier works on economics in the Internet age (The Long Tail and Free). Anderson -- formerly a tech editor for The Economist -- has got a very good grasp of economics and business; but as the long-time editor-in-chief at Wired, he wasn't afraid of visionary pronouncements about technology either. He's also got a background as an indie rocker, and has a good grasp of the rewards and challenges of a life in the arts. Though I've disagreed pretty vociferously with some of the things he's had to say in the past, his work has provoked more nods from me than head-shakes, and when I've disagreed with him, it's been for chewy, substantive reasons that were worth exploring.

I've just finished a copy of (Anderson's) Makers -- having come to the book a bit late due to my own book-tour for Pirate Cinema -- and it delivered on all the promise of Anderson's earlier work, and then blew past them. Simply put, Makers is a thrilling manifesto, a call to arms to quit your day job, pick up your tools, and change the future of manufacturing and business forever. It's a recipe for a heady cocktail of open business; free software; low-cost, global coordination; and community cooperation that Anderson credibly suggests will forever change the world.

Anderson's Makers is a tour through all the different ways that manufacturing in quantities of 1-10,000 units has been transformed, and how this changes the very nature of entrepreneurship and creativity. Using diverse example from modern times -- and comparing them with manufacturing stories from the past century -- Anderson shows how 3D printing, laser-cutting, Internet-based custom fabrication, free and open development models, and crowdfunding have made it possible to make something, make it better, sell it, make it better still through co-development with customers, scale up and up, and serve your needs and the needs of your community.

He doesn't gloss over the challenges of this sort of thing, but he does show how a world where hardware is (nearly) as cheap to prototype and share as software means that the traditional gatekeepers to creativity -- established manufacturing giants, retail titans, and massive distributors -- are losing their stranglehold on the market. This means that you can do something that makes your life better, you can turn it into a business, and others can turn it into a business, too.

Because this is Anderson, this is firmly a business book, and that's probably a good thing. Anderson's bottom-line practicality is likely to lend the idea of making a certain boardroom credibility that other, wider-eyed literature on the movement lacks. That said, this, more than any of Anderson's books, acknowledges the role that passion, love, community spirit and personal satisfaction play in the world of innovation. I was a little disappointed that Free glossed over the ethical and personal reasons that people worked on free and open systems, but in this volume Anderson's much more in touch with his indie-rock history than in previous outings, and it's a very welcome addition.

For all that, there's still a wide streak of makerish practicality here, and the chapters are only a few steps away from being full-blown HOWTOs for doing it yourself (or, more importantly, doing it with everyone else who cares about the same stuff as you). And Anderson certainly practices as he preaches: not long after the book's publication, he quit his job at Wired to run his DIY Drone business full-time.

This is really Anderson at his finest: a blend of economic big-picture stuff and nitty-gritty, hands-dirty making. I can see it being a perfect kick in the bum for any number of frustrated makers struggling in a crappy economy and wondering where to take their lives.

Makers: The New Industrial Revolution

Photo: Shutterstock

Defense Distributed, a group that is developing free designs for weapons made on 3D printers, tested out a firearm that has a plastic lower receiver made on a 3D printer. It successfully fired six rounds before splitting.

HaveBlue claimed in July to have fired his printed gun hundreds of times, which doesn't seem impossible given the quality of the printing. The part printed by the group is called the lower receiver, which is where a round is received from the magazine. Pictures show it to be very well made, and it appears to fit exactly to the other parts in the gun kit they used.

But the pressure of the recoil appears to have been too much for the "buffer ring," which separates the stock from the upper receiver. After firing just six shots, the gun split in two. It's a serious setback, especially considering they were firing a lower-caliber cartridge than the gun would normally shoot.

3D printed gun fires 6 shots - then falls apart (Thanks, Lew!)

Previously: Defense Distributed

Some Staples stores in Belgium and the Netherlands will have MCOR color 3D printers that will print out model-files uploaded to a store website for in-person pickup. MCOR printers use plain pulp paper as build material, so the resulting models will be essentially cellulose, dye and glue, and should be easy to recycle.

Staples’ Easy 3D will offer consumers, product designers, architects, healthcare professionals, educators, students and others low-cost, brilliantly coloured, photo-realistic 3D printed products from Staples stores. Customers will simply upload electronic files to the Staples Office Centre and pick up the models in their nearby Staples stores, or have them shipped to their address. Staples will produce the models with the Mcor IRIS, a 3D printer with the highest colour capability in the industry and lowest operating cost of any commercial-class 3D printer.

The press release promises that this technology will be made available in other Staples stores around the world.

Mcor Technologies and Staples division launch 3D printing service

Researchers from the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at Washington State University have built a 3D printer that can use sorted (simulated) Lunar regolith (moon dust) to print out "crude" objects. This is the premise of a novella I'm working on, so it's pretty exciting to see:

Amit Bandyopadhyay and Susmita Bose, using simulated lunar regolith that are analogies to moon rocks, have used 3D printing to create a number of crude objects. The simulated regolith, found on Earth and supplied by NASA, contains silicon, aluminum, calcium, iron and magnesium oxides but behaves like silica when melted by a laser. Once the regolith is melted, a 3D printer creates objects out of it layer by layer.

Using moon rocks shaped by 3D printers as building material or simple spare parts and tools would vastly decrease the expense of building and maintaining a lunar settlement. 3D printing also has considerable promise for Earth bound construction.

Researchers build objects with 3D printing using simulated moon rocks [Examiner] (via /.)

MakerBot has just opened its first retail store on Mulberry Street in lower Manhattan -- a great neighborhood, by the way, and a perfect place for a 3D printing store. The store includes many wonderments, including a 3D photo booth, where you get your head scanned and then printed out.

MakerBot and ShapeShot have joined forces to provide a 3D Photo Booth experience for the 21 st century – a chance to capture and create a 3D image, but not just any image, but a 3D portrait and replica of your face! In a few minutes, a scan is made of your face and displayed on a screen. Serious or funny expressions are immediately captured using ShapeShot’s 3D face data that can then be used to print out a 3D replica of your face! The 3D portrait is a cool souvenir, preserves your loved ones face forever, and is the perfect gift for birthdays, bar or bat mitzvahs, and holidays. Customers can also get a 3D bust of their baby, friends, and the whole family.

Introducing The MakerBot 3D Photo Booth!

3D Systems, one of the big, incumbent 3D printer makers, is suing Formlabs, an innovative new 3D printer company that prints in resin (see previous mentions), for patent infringement. They've also named Kickstarter to the suit.

3D Systems' complaint asserts that the sale and use of the Form 1 3D printers sold by Formlabs and Kickstarter infringe a U.S. patent relating to stereolithography. Formlabs sold the Form 1 3D printers to backers of its Kickstarter campaign in September and October 2012.

"3D Systems invented and pioneered the 3D printing technology of stereolithography and has many active patents covering various aspects of the stereolithography process," said Andrew Johnson, General Counsel of 3D Systems. "Although Formlabs has publicly stated that certain patents have expired, 3D Systems believes the Form 1 3D printer infringes at least one of our patents, and we intend to enforce our patent rights."

Many of the key patents in 3D printing start expiring in 2013, and will continue to lapse through '14 and '15. Expect a big bang of 3D printer innovation, and massive price-drops, in the years to come.

3D Systems Announces Filing of Patent Infringement Suit Against Formlabs and Kickstarter

Wired UK is running a Christmas Pop-Up shop in London's Regent Street from Nov 29-Dec 5, in the Quadrant Arcade by Picadilly. I'm delighted to note that MakieLab, the 3D printed toy company my wife co-founded, will have a store within the Wired shop, where you'll be able to buy Makie Dolls and accessories, or create custom dolls.

A Dutch artist called Caspar Berger is producing a "self-portrait" by 3D printing a replica of his own skull, then layering "flesh" atop it.

In this project, Self-portrait 21, the 3D copy of the skull represents the true image (vera icon). This image has formed the basis for a facial reconstruction by a forensic anthropologist, who received the skull anonymously accompanied only by the information that it belonged to a man in his mid-40s born in Western Europe. This facial reconstruction is based on the available scientific documentation of tissue structure, skin thickness and muscle groups. The clay reconstruction has been cast in bronze to be presented as Self-portrait 21, a self-portrait that has not been made by the artist.

Skeleton / Self-portrait 21 (via Beyond the Beyond)