Friday 26 December 2014

Will 3D Printing Significantly Affect our Life & Health?

I spent the last few days (of Xmas holiday) exploring the roles the mobile technology is playing in our health / wellness. Specifically, using my 1-month old iPhone 6 plus (128Gig), I downloaded and tried out a couple of mobile Apps that claimed to be designed to measure Pulse rate, Blood Pressure, and hearing loss. I was amazed at the ingenuity app developers put into making otherwise complicated gadgets for vital signs and hearing loss measurement much simpler using deeper familiarity with how mobile phone hardwares work. And then it was Xmas and people are jokingly asking friends and acquaintances to email / FB / Tweet their Xmas cakes. And then reflecting on the recent news of 3-D Printing of anatomical parts (calvarium, false teeth, hip and knee replacement prosthesis, and ceramic jaws, among others) and juxtaposing that on another more recent news of astronauts on the ISS making a 3-D printed wrench from the email specifications sent from ground station, simply put everything together like missing parts of a jigsaw puzzle: 2015 is likely going to be a year in which the expression 'emailing / Facebooking / Tweeting Xmas or BDay cakes' may move away from the realm of cursory jokes to reality. 
    

References:
1. The Guardian Sunday 24 August 2014. (theguardian.com)
2. NASA Makes 3D Printed Wrench Model Available. (science.slashdot.org )
3. 3D Printing - Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org 

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