What’s That Old Saying?

Posted on 3/23/2005 by csven

You know the saying about setting goals just beyond your reach but not so far out they’re hopeless. That’s been on my mind as I’ve turned the RepRap project over in my head the past few days. And after having just read a website entry by rapid-prototyping guru, Terry Wohler, it’s feeling like an echo chamber in here. There’s a lot of truth in what Mr. Wohler says. A personal rapid prototyper is not going to put Wal*Mart out of business; after all, current manufacturing is geared towards, and Wal*Mart’s very successful strategy is centered on, the basic concept of high-volume/low-price (aka mass consumption). There’s a reason injection molding has been around for so long: cycle times generally stay under a minute and are often 30-40 seconds. Watching a press in action is like watching a rabbit in a carrot patch ingesting raw material and dropping “pellets” into a bin. It’s fast and requires little human interaction (if any). There is of course time and capital expense to create the tooling, but even that is likely to go through a dramatic shift in the near future (courtesy of rapid prototype-technology molds). So it’s reasonable to assume I’ll be wormfood before an RP device approaches the benchmarks set by those processes.

The real issues for me center on defining the User, meeting their needs, and also anticipating future needs of which that User is currently unaware (which, I might add, is how many successful companies are now addressing product development). I suspect, but don’t yet know, that there are probably very different ideas about who the target user is and what their circumstances are. And that concerns me more than the design and technology challenges that Mr. Wohler raises. I can imagine the results of this RepRap effort looking a bit like NASA’s recently announced Water Recovery System which is being recruited for humanitarian purposes planetside. You can read my admittedly pessimistic comments about that repurposing on WorldChanging’s site. Which is why I’m wondering if this project actually has two components: one technological and just beyond our grasp, and another ergonomic that is perhaps not even being considered.

The Copyright Clause and Me

Posted on 3/22/2005 by csven

When I started blogging over on Core last month, I wrestled with the issue of copyright infringement. It’s one thing to cite sources and use quotations, another to use images, in my opinion – even though copyright law allows for so-called “Fair Use”. But what happens when “Fair Use” overlaps commerce? The Core website receives income from advertising on their blogs. And that makes me somewhat uncomfortable. For that reason I made a deliberate decision to use WordPress over Google’s Blogger for this blog because the latter has built-in advertising functions. The grey area was looking more like an 80% cool grey.

Well, it appears this issue will now be taken up by the courts. The Guardian reports that the AFP news organization is suing Google over copyright infringement. Why is that important to reBang? Simple. You only have to visit the CGTalk forum, the Polycount model resources section, or a virtual sim like Second Life to see or read about IP violations of the 3D variety. On CGTalk the issue is often whether or not modelers who recreate and sell vehicle designs violate car company IP. On Polycount people routinely create models of recognizable IP (Simpsons, Star Wars figures, etc). And in Second Life people run virtual storefronts selling virtual clothes branded with recognizable real world logos. If I have issues with images, it’s a safe bet I have an issue with some of this as well. So in the near future when all this virtual stuff can be inexpensively made into real product by casual users through “fabbing” technology (and hasn’t Bruce Sterling been beating that drum pretty loudly lately?), IP ownership will become an increasingly slippery issue. So anything and everything regarding intellectual property is of interest to me; including my own decisions in regards to it. So expect fewer images as I make more deliberate decisions in what to appropriate for this blog.

Stranger In A Strange Land

Posted on 3/21/2005 by csven

As mentioned in a prior post, I’ve been spending some time exploring Second Life’s virtual world. One expects that objects, graphics, animations, physics and the rest improve in this corner of cyberspace just like they do most everywhere else. That’s just technology, and videogames have certainly been showing off some amazing things lately. But what I’m finding interesting is how real people interact with – and through – this virtual world.

Take for example the above image, “sittin’ at the crick…”. For lack of a better description, this is a “photograph” snapped by an SL “resident”, Jellybean Madison. She (apparently) posted it online from within the SL simulation using a third party tool called Snapzilla. I’ll let them explain it:

Snapzilla [is a] new feature from SLUniverse that allows everyone in Second Life to share their snapshots with the world, directly through SL. Downloading snapshots to your hard drive and then uploading them is hardly spontaneous. With Snapzilla, you just click the Snapshot button in Second Life and choose Email Postcard and you are on your way to sharing your snapshots.

An image posted and given a caption? Emailed to others? Shared? Why? I don’t know exactly because I’m too new to the experience. But I have noticed that there are other, similar tools in beta which send images to sites like Flickr, possibly the best known and most popular image-hosting website on the net. So these snapshots will be seen by a large audience; many of whom have never been inside a virtual reality sim. Furthermore, in as much as all images online are really nothing more than colored pixels, these “photos” are as real to the strangers who view them as the “real” photos taken in meatspace using a 35mm. And when the graphics improve in years to come, who’s to say what’s valid and what isn’t?

But it doesn’t stop with photos. I was checking my email yesterday and discovered that an “in-world” message had been forwarded to my real world email. Lines blur. It’s one thing to know of this interactivity and another to experience it. And even more interesting are the number of independent projects coded by residents for doing things like tracking virtual world assets (which have real world value in many cases) outside the simulation. Now that sounds like the kind of thing Microsoft should build into their Xbox 2 feature set.

Getting X’d Out

Posted on 3/21/2005 by csven

Although not definitive, this piece over on Reuters makes it sound increasingly as if Microsoft’s Xbox 2 “Marketplace” will be more like a corporate-run mall instead of an open-air flea market. That would be a shame imo. Having spent the last couple of days exploring Second Life where players actually create content within the virtual world and conduct both virtual and real monetary transactions directly, I’m having a hard time imagining how a closed virtual economy can be a good thing. If game developers interface to MS’s Marketplace – and there’s a strong likelihood they will – they’ll need Content to continue flowing long after the game ships to consumers. And unless they intend to diversify into what, in the real world, is essentially an after-market “parts” market, I expect that they’ll start outsourcing this secondary activity to “modders”. And of course, everyone loves middlemen and the power they have to control (aka raise) prices. Same as it ever was…

Am I On A “Lost” Episode Or What?

Posted on 3/18/2005 by csven

I was reading an interesting interview with Natalie Jeremijenko and was, as a drawn-out consequence, thinking about the need for a rapid prototyping device that actually replicates itself. In this way, where it’s needed most – in under-developed regions – there is less likelihood of the technology being misappropriated by those with less-than-charitable intentions. Okay… in theory. And perhaps a little too pie-in-the-sky. But one quick hop over to New Scientist and I find a brand new article discussing this very same idea. And what’s more, Dr. Adrian Bowyer intends to make the “RepRap” open source. Awesome.

Now, couple this to some cool fuel cell technology whose by-product is potable water, and you’ve got yourself something of worth to the developing world it seems (as well to a few of us with additional ideas in mind).

Well this couldn’t have come at a better time. Earlier today I was hunting up new RP sites and reviewing old ones with little success. I did find a relatively new forum over at http://www.rapidprototyping.net and registered. And I even checked out Terry Wohler’s site (didn’t appear to have much new content since my last visit a few months back). Seems I have some additional googling to do though. No doubt people will be discussing the RepRap project. Just hope all my hits aren’t me out on the net going on and on about the article. Now what do I wish for next…