Now, for under $1,000 you can print your own objects in 3D. Just take a look at how it’s done in this video, which I took over the weekend before Disrupt got started. We had a Hackathon with about 300 engineers who came to cobble together software and hardware products in 24 hours. Among them was Zach Hoeken of MakerBot Industries. His MakerBot is making an open-source toilet holder (which may not be something the world really needs, but it sure does look cool).
The MakerBot can print almost any small object from a design file on your computer: open-source toilet holders, open-source bottle openers, human figurines. It prints it out in layers of plastic. The designs are open-source, allowing anybody to manufacture them without paying a royalty. People share their 3D designs on Thingiverse. Come on, you know you want one.
