The story of the Robohand is as inspiring as an Oprah interview. One of the participants, however, noted that he didn’t intend to help those missing a limb. Instead, he sought out a 3D printed hand to save himself after a wood working accident shaved off four of his fingers. And yet, thanks to a collaboration between carpenter Richard Van As in Johannesburg, and a Seattle prop designer a five-year old born without fingers now has a more functional hand.

There’s also an Indigogo campaign to raise money to make more of these and help more children and adults born without fingers get their own Robohands. It’s heartwarming.

The collaboration between the two also emphasizes the best of what the internet and connectivity has to offer. This story wouldn’t have happened without a 3D printer, but it also wouldn’t have happened without the rapid dissemination of information enabled by the internet. For example, the South African woodworker first learned about Ivan Owen in Seattle because a video Owen had done showing a robot hand he had made went viral.

Then, there’s the building of the hand, which costs about $150. After Owen and Van As developed the plans for a hand, they made the plans open source and freely available on the internet. At a point where plenty of people are worrying about the IP infringement implications of 3D printing, such as printing out a proprietary design such as LEGOs or the dangers of evading regulations by printing harmful devices such as guns, this story is a reminder that people will use 3D printing for good as well.

Yes, this story is being pushed hard by MakerBot, the company that makes 3D printers (there are more than 15,000 of them in use today), but it’s also a reminder that as any new technology is introduced it will be used for both good and bad. And with regulators having met last month in Washington DC a conference to discuss some of the implications of 3D printing technology, it’s good to remember that 3D printers are a tool capable of good or bad when pondering upcoming laws and regulations.

We are lucky to live in a time when technological advances are making new things possible at pace that is possibly more rapid than any other time in human history. We have the rapid dissemination of knowledge and ability to share across continents thanks to broadband. Crowd funding tools now allow a wider spectrum of people to raise money for their ideas and we also have tools like 3D printing to turn digital designs into physical products.

And perhaps most of all, we have an engaged community of people who have the technical know-how reaching out to those around the world who have the curiosity and intelligence to make a difference. Now those billions can have the tools as well.

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3D printer at MIT Media Lab could construct a building.

New Gartner research shows that the price for “enterprise-class” 3-D printers is falling enough that more businesses can (and should) start experimenting with them. It estimates that by 2016, these big-boy 3-D printers will cost as little as $2,000. Industrial-grade printers now typically cost five times that much but there’s no reason to wait. Companies should start experimenting with the technology now, even if it’s with lower-cost desktop models, since there is minimal risk of capital or time.

In a statement, Gartner Research Director Pete Basiliere said:

“Businesses must continuously monitor advances to identify where improvements can be leveraged … We see 3D printing as a tool for empowerment, already enabling life-changing parts and products to be built in struggling countries, helping rebuild crisis-hit areas and leading to the democratization of manufacturing.”

Companies that jump in early can get a more realistic grasp of material costs and the time it takes to build parts and components, Gartner said.

To be sure, some affordable technology is already available, at least, to churn out small items. The Makerbot Replicator 2 desktop 3-D printer, which made a splash at SXSW, lists for $2,199. Makerbot is also working on a 3-D scanner to ease the measurement and digitization of what needs to be manufactured. Makerbot CEO Bre Pettis told GigaOM that the Makerbot Digitizer, due this fall, will give creators another way to move designs between the physical and digital worlds. If you want to replicate a physical item, you scan it into the system which digitizes it and builds a 3-D blueprint which can be fed into the printer.

MIT Media Lab Director Joi Ito is a huge fan of 3-D printing. At a recent event broadcast by the BBC, Ito reiterated his enthusiasm for the technology which he says can make high-quality manufacturing a key part of the U.S. economy again and boost the “maker movement” overall. As 3-D printing gains traction, more manufacturing may come back to the U.S. Ito is also investing in the sector. He, along with Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, has invested in 3-D printing startup FormLabs.

In theory, the availability of inexpensive 3-D printers means that manufacturers can afford to make small lots of goods and then quickly change up their production lines to meet new demands. This technology has spawned a new class of hardware-oriented startups and efforts. With the time-and-cost savings 3-D printing can provide, “hardware really could be the new software.”

This story was updated at 7:30 a.m. PDT with additional information on the current price of industrial 3-D printers.

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For the past few years, SXSW — which is like the tech industry’s Spring Break fueled by BBQ, beer and the latest startups — has acted as a platform for a variety of social media and mobile apps to launch and gain mind share. Twitter famously broke out in SXSW in 2007. But at SXSW this year, as the New York Times noted this week, it looks like it’s hardware’s turn in the spot light.

Hot hardware

The Replicator 2, 3D printer, by MakerBot

As rain drizzled down outside the Austin convention center and marketers handed out logo-laden bright ponchos to conference-goers, Pettis used the opportunity of his opening remarks at the show to unveil his company’s new 3D scanner called the MakerBot Digitizer. He referred to the Digitizer as the “washer and dryer” partner to MakerBot’s 3D printer the Replicator 2, and described the Digitizer’s 3D scanning process as “like what happens in Tron when Flynn gets digitized.”

The device, which is supposed to be out in the Fall, will give creators and makers another tool to move designs from the physical world, to the digital world, and back again. While professional designers and artists have high-end machines that do this, the Digitizer is meant to bring this capability to the DIY movement. The Digitizer uses a camera to scan the device as it rotates, the digital design of the 3D object is captured, and the Replicator 2 can replicate the object, or a tweaked version of the object.

A monster created by the MakerBot

Pettis also used his talk to announce that design giant Autodesk is now selling MakerBot’s 3D printers, giving the startup access to Autodesk’s large customer network, and adding some heft to the 3D printer movement. Pettis, who was introduced before his talk as the “King of the 3D printing revolution,” launched MakerBot as a company at SXSW in 2009. (To read more about 3D printing check out our research report on GigaOM Pro, subscription required).

Makers, creators and devices

As Stacey Higgenbotham predicted earlier this week, SXSW Interactive 2013 is all about the DIY maker movement and 3D printing. Across the street from the convention center, Autodesk is hosting a large “Create” space that’s highlighting inventors, and tinkerers and the devices that they’ve developed.

Of course under the Create tent, Autodesk and MakerBot are showing off the Replicator 2, and Autodesk’s 3D printer software and applications, and they’ve even got a vending machine that’s selling 3D-printed monsters. Autodesk has an app called 123D Creatures that lets you make, and print out, monsters on your iPad; Autodesk can use these types of consumer-focused apps as both marketing, as well as to boost sales for its 3D printer software ecosystem.

Vending machine dispensing 3D printed monsters, by MakerBot, Autodesk.

Other devices under the Create tent include social good gadgets like the BioLite Stove, invented by Alexander Drummond and Jonathan Cedar, the “See Better to Learn Better” low cost eye glasses from Fuseproject’s Yves Behar, and the Embrace Nest baby warmer. Lytro was showing off a camera that was launched at SXSW 2012, and which captures the light field of photos, enabling users to focus on and interact with different parts of the picture.

The Lytro camera

In fact, in the few hours that the show has been open on Friday, I have yet to see a demo of or hear about a super hot social media or mobile app that’s blowing up at the show. But I have heard about 3D printable rocketships, new wearables from unusual players, and I got a brief demo this morning of the Misfit Shine from Misfit CEO Sonny Vu. I’m sure the digital-only apps and services are here at the show, but hardware and the physical world seem to be overshadowing them.

In a way, that makes sense. The Internet of Things is officially here, and super cheap sensors are enabling gadgets to use data to help us in our daily lives. At the same time, wearable technology like Google Glass is making the computing industry think in an entirely new way. A physical component is almost necessary to move the computing paradigm forward beyond tablets, smart phones, and laptops. And for the early-adopters at the SXSW show this year, that means they get the first change to play with these devices.

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Here’s the Ford video showing an employee talking about using 3D printers for prototype designs of a gearshift.

A Ford spokesman told me that while it’s tough to give an exact count on the number of employees who have the 3-D printers, the company has multiple locations at the company’s Dearborn, Mich. headquarters where hundreds of engineers have access. And at the carmaker’s Silicon Valley Lab in Palo Alto all employees have Makerbots. The most popular areas they are in use today at Ford are in the Vehicle Design and Infotronics group.

3D printing will change the distribution chain for manufactured goods

As devotees of the computer and broadband revolution may recall, both of these technologies were first deployed in the workplace and then trickled down into users’ homes. Remember the concept of Cyber Monday? That was a thing because people used to have to go into work to use their office broadband in order to buy stuff online. Now, despite the fact that 19 million Americans lack access to broadband, we still have embraced the consumer web.

The PC was a similar revolution that started with mainframes, then went to minicomputers and finally to desktops. With 3D printers I wonder if we’ll see similar adoption trends that we saw with the PC. PCs were very work-specific with software for productivity dominating, so when people purchased them they tended to do so for word processing, spreadsheets and other productivity related tasks. Those initial machines were also expensive, so you bought one because you needed it. Later, it became a hub for games and fun activities as well.

What’s killer app for 3D printing?

With 3D printers, which can cost less than $1,000, the common consumer may not see much need for one, yet. But all we need is the right killer app to intersect with the right price point and then the machines will become widespread. Some might argue that printing LEGO bricks are the killer app, but I kind of doubt it. My hunch is it may be more mundane, like someone building an open source library of common household parts that break, or a line of products whose parts could be replaced by parts created in a 3D printer. The printing technology and materials would also have to improve, although I’m certain with wider adoption this would happen.

And once we have common 3D printers in the home and office, that could signal a fundamental change in the distribution of physical goods, much like the development of the web was a fundamental change in the delivery of digital content. Instead of buying new furniture, we buy new replication materials and download the designs over the Internet. If the replication materials are recyclable, you might be able to change your home’s decor in a few weeks and consume ever more products at a lower price point.

We’re not there yet, but imagining how the widespread adoption of capable 3D printers could change the world doesn’t just stop with industrial designers or hobbyists. One day you might print out your flatware, your trash cans or even your next computer. If you think this is nuts, just ponder the line from the minicomputer to your smartphone. Or just go watch one of my favorite videos showing how quickly technology advances.

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I have little doubt the higher price MakerBot is worth the price — it can print smoother objects due to higher resolution support — but I can’t yet justify two grand to kick the tires of this technology that prints 3-D objects using precise multiple layers of plastic. But I might be convinced to buy the Portabee, even though it can only print smaller objects and comes unassembled.

By putting the printer together myself, I suspect I’d learn a little bit more about the moving parts and how they all work together. And for a first printer, I’m fine with the limitation of small objects; the Portabee can print something up to 135 mm x 135 mm by 120 mm. Here’s a look at it in action:

What might I design and print? I really haven’t thought that far ahead. Off the top of my head, I’d consider building a kickstand that fits on the back of my Galaxy Note 2 for watching videos in landscape mode. I was considering the purchase a case for just such a scenario. It would be more fun to design and print my own. Maybe I’d print a small object to help with all of the cable clutter on my desktop. At this point, the sky’s the limit — within reason due to size constraints — and I have a blank page in front of me to print whatever objects my mind can envision.

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Here are some of the suggestions from Emile Patrone, the founder of DIY project sales site Tindie, Scott Miller, the founder of product design consulting firm Dragon Innovation, and William Hurley, the co-founder of design firm Chaotic Moon Studios. And yes, all of them recommended some sort of 3D printer, either the Form-1 that began as a Kickstarter campaign and will sell for $3,299 in April, or the MakerBot Replicator for $2,199 (because of Hurricane Sandy it looks like that won’t arrive in time for the holidays though). But like a soldering iron, I’m going to assume if your hacker recipient wants a 3D printer they already have one.

Product: Simon Says
Cost: $12.95
What you need to know: The Simon Says board is a beginner board kit that plays a light and sound-based memory game. The board plays a series of sounds and you play it back in sequence. The kit aims to teach people how to solder, and is also uses open source hardware so you can program your own light and sound combinations after you’ve maxed out the ones already programmed on the board.

Product: The Rascal
Cost: $175
What you need to know: This is a somewhat hard-to-buy gift, since they are batch-made, but the boards are basically portable (if you include a Wi-Fi radio and a battery) web servers that you can program using Python. People have used them to control any electronic device from the web. You can hook your electronic device into the board (you will probably need a shield of some sorts) and then write some code to build a web site from which you can now control the device. With the right board and shield I may be able to figure out how to control my oven from the web (yes, this is a dream of mine).

Product: Stirling Engine Model
Cost: $129
What you need to know: The product description says this is beautiful as well as a lesson in thermodynamics, and who wouldn’t want a desk-side sculpture that also doubles as a physics experiment? Plus you have to make it! As paperweights go the replica of a Stirling Engine, (there’s one inside a Segway) shows you how to convert an external heat source into motion via a fan, car and generator experiment. Outrage your steampunk friends with a more alternative engine.

Product: Electric Imp Breakout
Cost: $19.95
What you need to know: The Electric Imp guys have the ambitious goal of bringing Wi-Fi to everything using an SD-style card that you can plug into a variety of gadgets, appliances or even lamps. then you program those elements via a web-based service. You can’t get the easy-to-use version of the products yet, but you can buy a breakout board and build your own connected product if you’re so inclined.

Product: ExtraCore
Cost: $10.50
What you need to know: A lot of people buy Arduino boards and share them between projects. This makes sense because those boards containing the logic processors can be expensive. The downside is that you may have a lot of half-complete projects waiting around for a board to make it work. ExtraCore is a kit that can power your project for a third of the cost of an Arduino board. The key to this board is that it’s small and Looks just like Arduino Uno to the integrated developer environment.

Product: Twine
Cost: $99
What you need to know: Connecting stuff to the Internet is pretty much an essential step in many DIY projects, and Twine makes is easy enough that I can do it. The product is a rubberized self-contained sensor pack that also has a Wi-Fi radio that outputs to a web site. The Twine web app reflects what the sensors see in real time, so you can than write a little program telling Twine that when X happens it should take an action that might send info to a web page, to an email, to Twitter or to the Pebble Smart watch.

Product: The 2WD Rovera Arduino Robot Kit
Cost: $174.99
What you need to know: Who doesn’t want to build a friendly little robot to play with and/or help you in your plans for world domination. The kit includes everything you need to build a two-wheeled robot including the motor shield board, wheels and wires. It’s unclear if you can add a sensor that would allow you to program the robot to look soulfully at you and say, “No disassemble.”

Product: MiniStylophone Kit
Cost: $9:50
What you need to know: This is a kit for beginners that will allow them to play music and record sounds for later playback. The kit requires the recipient to solder 24 resistors to the board, so make sure your recipient has a soldering iron. When done you use a stylus to play the music on the stylophone. You can hook it into other projects or annoy your friends and parents.

Product: Membership to a hack space
Cost: It varies, but can range from $99 to $175 per month.
What you need to know: There are myriad places where like-minded DIYers can get together and take classes, use equipment and store their projects from the Artisan’s Asylum in Boston to TechShop which has spaces in the Bay Area, Austin, Detroit and Raleigh-Durham, N.C. For a listing of other popular places check out the Hackerspaces Wiki.

Product: Gamby
Cost: $25
What you need to know: This is a limited edition Arduino shield to combine with an Arduino board to make a mobile gaming console. It has a monochrome LCD screen and four-way directional pad for that up-up-down-down gameplay. The games are already in your head, so get coding and start playing them on your very own hardware. Great gift for a special proposal or an awesome product to make with your kids.

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1. What’s the one big issue/law/attitude/restriction that you think is holding back the industry?

It’s an amazing time for innovation and change, but it’s also a very challenging time for folks whose roles are changing and thus understandably need to protect their livelihood.

I don’t think the industry is necessarily being held back, except maybe by attempts to define and control the industry using standards no longer relevant. As publishing shifts to participation, media becomes a part of every business, rather than an island to itself. When everyone can participate, it changes the value of the media, particularly for those who used to be able to control their publishing and even charge for access to media!

Though it might not be as good economically for many of the creative folks I hold dear, I think the world is a better place when we can all contribute to its narrative. This democratization makes nothing impossible — and is changing our collective experience of the world.

2. What industry buzzword do you never want to hear again?

Predictably: “transmedia.” I am not a fan of words used to exclude people; and it seems to just mean “media.” But, I am losing the war and have little choice to but to utter this blasphemy all the time…

3. If someone gave you $50 million to invest in a company in this space, which one would it be? (Mentioning your own doesn’t count.)

Besides the companies 7Robot advises — Ask A Ninja, Next New Networks, Orb Media, & Water Canary — I’d invest in 3-D printers, specifically Makerbot. 3-D printing will change not our experience of things, but also of ownership and wealth. What do you need if your printer can print a printer? Check out www.reprap.org, which has the best tagline ever — “wealth without money” — and www.makerbot.com for more information. If I only had $1000 to invest, I’d buy and build the next release of the Makerbot!

4. What were the three last videos (that you weren’t personally involved with) that you liked enough to spread to others?

Following my years at Veoh watching and trying to acquire every video on the internet, I found it kind of hard to watch video for a really long time. Having so much of it shared with me made it impossible to share it all. When so much of it was delivered with demands (instead of the far more effective compliment) that I could or would not meet, I began to only share videos where I did not know anyone involved, or it was my job to do so.

As corporate entities began singing their siren songs to me, the brilliant and insightful Gentry Underwood shared this video from Michael Bierut, which helped me to realize not only how much I adore my clients, but also how I can redefine my social design practice around a shift from systems to stories.

2010/01 Michael Bierut from CreativeMornings on Vimeo.

5. WILD-CARD: You’ve recently moved away from the world of video production to focus more on consulting and other areas of new media. Are there specific problems you see with the current model(s) for creating web content?

Though I haven’t been producing video content,I haven’t left the community — I hope I’ve been seeking to expand it! I think I’ve still got some video in me, though I am not sure what project could be as fabulous or teach me as much as working with the infinitely talented Damien Somerset, Jessica Williamson and the Next New Networks team on Zaproot.

That said, I guess my interests have expanded to fostering interactions and sharing experiences. I learned so much from the experience of building Zaproot and its community that it shifted my perspective on the business, how we make decisions, and how value was shifting from publishing to participation. With so many of us making videos, I could sell social design strategy at a premium, but, as so many people have discovered, not the production of content.

As we shift from storytelling to storysharing, and more and more people can and do participate in production, the systems that deliver these stories, and their default options, begin to have the impact (as well as the value) that the media once did. Instead of focusing on the production and publication of stories, I began to develop a strategic practice at 7Robot around the social design of systems, expanding storytelling into storysharing through choice optimization and behavioral economics. Now, rather than being focused on publishing video, I think video is one part of the puzzle of participation.

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Maybe you’d think I was crazy, but almost two years ago, we speculated that the web workers of the future may begin taking their digital designs and producing tangible items to sell, using online fabrication and production services such as Ponoko. Since then, the infrastructure of personal manufacturing has become gradually more accessible and affordable, suggesting that boutique production could become a viable career choice for many of us.

Last month’s issue of Wired explored some of the culture around  personal manufacturing, noting that “global supply chains have become scale-free, able to serve the small as well as the large, the garage inventor and Sony.” Wired’s piece drew some criticism, with Gizmodo suggesting that rather than being the the “future of American manufacturing,” the developments of the last few years are really only affecting hobbyists — who are actually just outsourcing work to China. Despite this, it’s clear that everything from open-source car designs to customized LEGO parts are just a click away.

“Thing” Directories and Fabrication Services

Companies such as Ponoko and Shapeways are providing end-to-end services that enable product designers to submit designs, have prototypes manufactured for review and then listed in online stores where customers can customize them, place orders and have items shipped.

Other services such as Thingiverse act as open-source directories of “construction files” for items as diverse as engagement rings and light-duty pliers. Elsewhere, Flexible Stream is offering free, downloadable portfolios of designer’s work for use in rapid manufacturing devices such as 3D printers and CNC machines. The company’s catalog includes objects as esoteric as collections of wood joints for making furniture.

Other creators are offering their designs as direct downloads from their own sites and blogs; designer Julien Madérou’s downloadable papercraft iPhone stand is a great example. Indeed, rather than printing such a design on paper, services such as Ponoko or Shapeways enable such designs to be fabricated from tougher materials, such as wood and metal.

3D Printers and Rapid Manufacturing Fabrication

Where the likes of Ponoko enable hobbyists to submit a design file for fabrication at a remote facility, for the more adventurous designer who’d like to make things at home, tools such as 3D printers are becoming more affordable and accessible.

New York’s MakerBot Industries are producing 3D printers that cost less than $1,000 and can purportedly manufacture any item that’s less than 4″x4″x6″. Though currently limited only to ABS plastic as a material, the price point and capability of these devices will only improve over time.

In parallel with these low-cost fabrication devices, networks of fabrication workshops are emerging as a kind of “coworking for machine shops.” The most prominent of these — TechShop – is concentrated in California. More recently Ponoko and ShopBot Tools (a manufacturer of CNC tools) launched a joint venture — 100kGarages — to bring together creative consumers and local fabricators in a global network of “garage workshops.”

Between fabrication services, “thing directories,” low-cost 3D printers and “comaking” workshops, the opportunities for web worker careers is growing, moving beyond the production of digital value and into a new world of boutique physical items.

Have you considered adding making and selling boutique items to your portfolio of skills?

Related GigaOM Pro Research: Report: 3-D Computing From Digital Cinema to GPUs

Read more: http://pro.gigaom.com/2009/10/report-3-d-computing-from-digital-cinema-to-gpus/#ixzz0f9XwNgkf