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USA Today on the future of retail shopping.
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Hope that never happens to a hardware store. “Man Law” and my own personal experience dictates that every plumbing job demands a minimum of 3 trips to the hardware store before the job is done. If I have to go look, buy, wait for shipment, return, buy what I forgot, wait for shipment, return, buy what I broke, wait for shipment every plumbing job could take 2 weeks minimum.
…… then again, it already takes close to that as it takes me a minimum of 10 days to psyche up just to do it in the first place.
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Futurist always forget human nature and the desire to socialise in public with real people. Shopping has changed but much will stay the same. A demand for a place to go publicly and be social with friends and strangers will demand that shopping centres will still be needed in the next iteration of our brave new world.
Sure lots of things can be bought online these days. Purchasing needed items is only part of what the psychology of shopping is about.
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[Phil Hoppes] “Hope that never happens to a hardware store.”
I think the reality of a wrench “printed” from foam or plastic will keep that at bay for a while.
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[Rich Rubasch] “This idea is a bunch of bunk. Said the same thing when DVDs came to our homes for <$200 a player. Movie theaters were all going to go bankrupt.
Nothing compares to seeing a movie in a theater in the same way that nothing beats seeing an item, touching it, using it and then buying it. I don’t want to go to Sears and look at jeans then go home and order them online so a UPS truck can deliver it to my house. I want the jeans now.
There is room for both models, but brick and mortar shopping will never go away.”
I don’t think brick and motar stores will entirely disappear either, but considering all the boarded up Blockbusters, Borders, Circuit Cities, music stores, etc., I don’t think the major impact of online sales can be ignored. I don’t see that trend turning around as technology continues to improve and become more affordable.
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[Michael Gissing] “Futurist always forget human nature and the desire to socialise in public with real people. Shopping has changed but much will stay the same. A demand for a place to go publicly and be social with friends and strangers will demand that shopping centres will still be needed in the next iteration of our brave new world.
“Futurists also don’t know many women, a large section of society with a particular fondness for shops
Steve Connor
“The ripple command is just a workaround for not having a magnetic timelinel”
Adrenalin Television -
Humm…
Did a screen replacement on one of the family MacBooks not so long ago.
Bought a $2.99 “custom tool kit” from the replacement panel mfg. The included plastic bag had about eight specialized tools including two small moulded plastic “pry bars” used to separate the device housing where it snapped together.
These were small, incredibly cheap tools perfectly suited for what I needed. A one-shot tool designed to do one job – then get tossed.
A 3d plastic printer could provide the exact same thing at home without a big supply chain being involved.
The question is how broadly you define “tool.” I can totally imagine downloading a file that produces a hardened plastic “one time tool” – perhaps to handle some weird “inverted Torx” screw designed to keep customers from opening and messing with a high tech device – in that example, “printing your tools” starts to make some very elegant sense.
I get that most of us, when we think “tool” we imagine something like a 1 pound metal pipe wrench – and that’s clearly hardware store territory as of today. But if someone eventually develops a cheap acrylic with a tensile strength comparable to steel and an affordable “printer” that can make it wrench shape – our thinking is going to totally change. And fast.
FWIW.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[Bill Davis] “But if someone eventually develops a cheap acrylic with a tensile strength comparable to steel and an affordable “printer” that can make it wrench shape – our thinking is going to totally change.”
Yeah, and if somebody builds a Star Trek-like transporter our thinking will totally change, too. Arthur C. Clarke wrote about such a thing in the last of his 2001 books, but the reality of such a printer–one that can do a wrench today, a plate tomorrow, a Barbie on Tuesday–is far in the potential future that it just isn’t worth discussing its potential impact on near-future economics. Even if it were nearly technologically viable today, the heat and chemical interactions required would be drastic enough to keep it out of a home.
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An adjustable wrench is scanned into a computer, the 3D model is fine tuned by a 3D modeler (which isn’t really shown in the video) and then printed using a 3D printer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ-aWFYT_SUDoctors use a 3D printer to make an ABS plastic vest and exoskeleton arms to improve a little girl’s mobility. As she grows, and parts break, replacements can be easily printed.
https://www.engadget.com/2012/08/08/3d-printed-magic-arms-give-a-little-girl-use-of-her-limbs/Jay Leno uses a 3D scanner and 3D printer to help make replacement parts for his cars (some parts can be totally fabricated on the spot while for others he generates an exact plastic replica which will be used to make a mold so a part can be cast).
https://www.jaylenosgarage.com/extras/articles/jay-lenos-3d-printer-replaces-rusty-old-parts-1/There were two or three companies at CES this past January showing off consumer 3D printers. I think we are closer to this tech trickling into mainstream commercial and consumer uses than people think. Hell, until last year I didn’t even know this stuff existed. It will start out small and possibly unimpressive but that’s part for the course for new things.
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[Andrew Kimery] ” It will start out small and possibly unimpressive but that’s part for the course for new things.”
Still waiting for my rocket car, dammit.
(This is the extended remix, released in 1986.)
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Tim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyouThe typos here are most likely because I’m, a) typing this on my phone; and b) an idiot.
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[Andrew Kimery] “An adjustable wrench is scanned into a computer, the 3D model is fine tuned by a 3D modeler (which isn’t really shown in the video) and then printed using a 3D printer.
“Cool looking stuff! I hadn’t seen that particular printer from Z, but I am aware of other 3D printers on the market. I’m pretty certain I wouldn’t want to use that wrench on the pipes I was working on earlier this summer, but an interesting demo none-the-less.
I still think we are many years–probably a half century–away from an affordable consumer printer that will even begin to fill people’s daily needs. In 3001, Clarke makes lots of interesting predictions, like a large, cheep chemical 3D printer that is able to provide for most of the wants on the planet. As I recall, in the short term, it causes an economic catastrophe, but one that is soon recovered from. I think he put such an event two to three centuries in the future. Of course, what he envisions involves not only wrenches but clothing manufacture and food production.
Right now 3D printers are only commercially fit for prototyping and expensive exotic needs. It will be a very long time before they will be able to economically compete with the current–and rather sophisticated–manufacture/distribution chain. Certainly, the price of printers will come down. Unsophisticated units have been in the hands of hobbyists for some time, and maybe within the next decade someone will mass produce something like Z’s stuff so that hobbyists and less well-healed designers will be able to afford something of that ilk. But it is going to be a VERY long time before these things sit in the average person’s home as a delivery unit. I think big box hardware is still safe for a wee bit.
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