Homemade [fabrication technology]

This paper describes the efforts of several universities to investigate technologies and materials that could lead to general-use, compact fabbers machines that rapidly create useful items on demand from computer-generated design specifications. Compact and yet capable fabbers point the way toward a future where the term "online shopping" takes on a whole new meaning. Although many technical hurdles must be cleared before home fabbing can become a reality, it's already possible to see its huge implications for engineers, designers and distributors.