Hasta La Gadget!

3D printing is changing how people make and build things these days. From printed guns to gowns, the sky’s the limit when it comes to 3D printing. This, you can clearly see, with the shoes that Alan Nguyen of Freedom of Creation has come up with using 3D printing technology.

The iPhone Mashup Shoe features an overlapping strap with an intricate heel that has its very own iPhone case. You can slip your smartphone snugly into the case so you can carry it with you wherever you’re headed in the most unconventional way possible. Each shoe comes with its own iPhone case, so you can carry up to two phones at a time.

While they look kind of cool, it’s not a very sensible design, since your phone will probably be worse for wear after a short while. But while the wedges won’t be so gentle on your iPhone, at least they’ll be kind to your feet.

The iPhone Mashup Shoe was exhibited last year at Milan Design Week and Maison et Objet Paris.

Nguyen explained: “They actually work. I heard they’re pretty comfortable but I haven’t tried them myself.”

[via C|NET]

It’s rare to see a company that is so established yet as cutting-edge as Shapeways. The company, founded in 2007 as a spin-off of Royal Philips Electronics, began as a one-off 3D printing service that offered basic plastic items for sale online. Over the years, however, the company has branched off into some amazing materials – steel, ceramic, and even sandstone – and they’ve already been able to support full color printing in 3D.

Now the company is opening a series of facilities in the US and they invited us to their first print shop in Long Island City, New York. In this massive, warehouse-like space, the company has set up a number of acrylic printers as well as a small customer service team. They plan on expanding further, adding more machines to an already impressive array. The goal is to offer 3D print shops close to major US metropolitan areas to reduce wait-times and to spread out the manufacturing process among different factories. The company will have 30 to 50 printers in the LIC location once it is complete.

I spoke with co-founder Peter Weijmarshausen about the Shapeways process, the printers, and what it takes to become a 3D-printing powerhouse in a nascent market. It’s great to see such a cool company expand and it’s even more fun to get to tour the facilities even before the machines, printers, and staff becomes fully operational. Enjoy the tour and tune in next time for another TechCrunch Makers!

TechCrunch Makers is a video series featuring people who make cool stuff. If you’d like to be featured, email us!.

Go where none of your other Trekkie friends have gone before or become one of Django Fett’s clones with the force of 3D printing. Two separate services are offering to put your likeness on a Starfleet or stormtrooper figurine.

If you want to be a tiny and immobile stormtrooper from the Star Wars universe, the Disney empire is the place to go. Starting May 17, 2013, you can head to Disney’s Hollywood Studios and have your face scanned. After paying $100 (USD) and waiting at least 7 weeks, you’ll have your own stormtrooper figurine.

On the other hand, if being a long-sleeved space explorer is your thing, just head to Cubify’s website to order a Star Trek figurine.

Unlike the appropriately uniform nature of Disney’s stormtroopers, the Star Trek figurines are fairly customizable. You can choose the gender, pose, shirt color and even the rank of your figurine. All you need to provide are reference photos and $70. Head to Engadget to see more images and a video of sample Star Trek figurines.

[Star Trek via Engadget  | Star Wars via CNET via Ubergizmo]

In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news.

Another week with Google Glass and, as I grow more accustomed to having it in my life, I find myself struggling more and more to come up with reasons to wear the thing. I’m still very happy to stop on the street and give people a demo, but if I’m being honest, I don’t need that much attention from strangers in my life. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still very excited about the potential here, but it’s safe to say the novelty is running out.

Still, this week Glass did get a nice improvement. The XE5 update was released late Tuesday night and shipped with a series of small but important niceties, like notifications from Google+ and the ability to do a search from anywhere in the UI. Unfortunately, this update also changes things such that uploads will only occur from the headset when it’s plugged in and on WiFi. That’ll help battery life — at a somewhat unfortunate cost to wireless functionality.

Filed under: Misc, Blackberry

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It was the summer of 2012 when the first news of a 3D-printed gun surfaced, an assault rifle-style .22 that appeared on a message board devoted to the love of firearms. That weapon was believed to be the first 3D-printed gun successfully fired, but its fame was short lived, with The Liberator having caught popular attention soon after for being the first fully 3D-printed firearm. After being successfully fired, the company behind it – Defense Distributed – released the blueprints for anyone to download, something the Department of Defense has already stymied.

The Liberator was created by 25-year-old law student Cody Wilson of Defense Distributed. The gun was designed in such a way that it can be easily recreated by others who have access to a 3D printer, making the firearm a weapon that can be theoretically mass produced on a very accessible consumer level. The gun, which resembles a toy with its square plastic body, is made from easily obtainable ABS plastic and has a total of 16 parts. Although it is hailed as the first fully-printed firearm, it does have a metal firing pin due to the inability of plastic to withstand the force. The weapon was designed to fire ordinary handgun rounds, of which various calibers can be used thanks to an interchangeable barrel.

The Liberator was test fired on Monday, May 6. Unfortunately, the testing phase didn’t fare as well as Wilson had hoped, with the first attempt resulting in a misfire and the second – which involved a 5.7 x 28 rifle cartridge – ending with the handgun being blow into shrapnel, perhaps making the Liberator the first 3D-printed explosive device, as well. Such a result didn’t slow them down too much, however.

As we noted earlier this month, Wilson planned to release his blueprints on the database website Defcad.org, where other CAD files for printable guns are available. He ultimately followed through with this plan, making the blueprints available for others to download today. In a short span of time, the file was saved over 100,000 times, a reality that has quickly been halted by the government.

As of now, the DefCad website displays a banner reading: “DEFCAD files are being removed from public access at the request of the US Department of Defense Trade Controls. Until further notice, the United States government claims control of the information.” This followed a letter sent by the State Department’s Office of Defense Trade Compliance demanding the blueprints be removed while a review was performed to see whether they count as class one munitions. It is possible Defense Distributed violated the Arms Export Control Act as a result of releasing information without authorization that is under control of the International Traffic in Arms Regulation.

On one side of the fence, many have expressed concerns about the ability for anyone to download blueprints for printing their own firearms, something that could result in obtaining weapons without a background check and facilitate access for felons and the mentally ill. In addition, 3D printed guns wouldn’t have serial numbers, an issue posing its own problems. On the other hand, however, are those who say access to such information is the right of a free people, and that blocking access to it is a restriction of one’s rights.

Wilson is in the latter camp, quoted as saying: “I immediately complied and I’ve taken down the files. But this is a much bigger deal than guns. It has implications for the freedom of the web.”

[via BetaBeat]

Department of Defense gives banhammer to 3D-printed gun blueprints is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
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