Eastman Kodak Company announced a new inkjet printer Kodak ESP C310 All-In-One. According to the manufacturer, the model makes prints of high quality, has compact design, and supports wireless connectivity for easy use at home. Proprietary pigment inks, available in black and color cartridges, have standard and increased volume and offer a wider choice for better satisfaction of customer’s printing needs. For example, Kodak Black Ink 30XL (black) and Kodak Color Ink 30XL (color) cartridges allow consumers, who need to print large volumes of photos and documents, making twice as many prints as the Kodak Black Ink Cartridges 30 and Kodak Color Ink 30 respectively.

Kodak also offers a function of 3D-photo printing. The company promises to become the first manufacturer of consumer inkjet printers to introduce three-dimensional images to the market at an affordable price. This technology was developed in Kodak laboratories and makes it possible for Kodak printer users to create and print 3D photos without the need to use additional special equipment. Printer Kodak ESP C310 AiO should appear on sale in April at a suggested price of $99.99.

As of today, all that we send into space is made here on Earth, and considerable money is spent on transportation of object to orbit. In sci-fi movies, we’ve seen orbital plants and factories building stations, ships, etc. Why can’t it be like that today?

Experts of the Made In Space company will try to find answers to this question. However, in their plans, orbital factories are replaced with 3D-printers. The goal of the guys is to launch an array of industrial 3D-printers that will produce (that is print) parts of the space shuttles and space stations.

According to representatives of Made In Space, manufacturing in space will save both money and time. Moreover, if the technology take hold and justify itself, it will be possible to organize the 3D-enterprise on the Moon. Perhaps it is thanks to them that colonies will be able to produce construction materials for buildings and robots.

Jason Dunn, co-founder of Made In Space, believes that all things for space are better off built in space.

At this stage, Made in Space professionals engaged in the evaluation of different models of 3D-printers, which can be used for the goal. Besides, test models of plastic parts are being “printed”.

One of the biggest challenges of the company is to make printers workd steadily and produce high-quality components in zero gravity. The Made in Space intends to resolve this issue within next 6 months.

Specialists from Kor Ecologic and Stratasys decided not to dwell on success achieved by other companies and attempted to use a 3D-printer to print a real car.

Futuristic Urbee promises to become the first ever car “printed” using the Stratasys Dimension 3D-printer and Fortus 3-D Production System solutions.

A full-scale prototype has not yet been completed. Nevertheless, engineers can already boast of prefabricated elements body cars, including glass.

Despite the weird appearance, Urbee has many advantages. For example, one gallon of gas this car can travel on highway 200 miles, and 100 miles in the city.

As designed by the engineers, Urbee can be powered not only with liquid fuel, but also by electricity. Cars can be recharged using an ordinary outlet, solar or wind energy.

It is expected that the unfinished prototype of the car will be exhibited during the SEMA (Speciality Equipment Market Association) motor show in Las Vegas.

Today no one is surprised by printers producing three-dimensional objects – there has been a variery of development approaches to the subject: glass printer, foam printer, even food printer, to name a few. However, craftsmen continue to find ingenious ways to implement known technologies. For example, Junior Veloso from Singapore, who stepped aside from  the traditional method of printing in desiging his own 3D-printer.

Traditional stereolithography usis a scanning UV-laser, which hardens liquid polymer layer by layer. The DLP-printer of the Singaporean operates in a similar manner, but it employs micromirrors-based video projector  to expose the polymer layer by layer.

Such a design exhibits a single layer within 4-8 s, and it takes a few hours to build the entire object of multiple layers. In addition, the polymer should be opaque, or the effect of “shadowing” light passing through it would create a distorted shape.