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.

An amazing invention is going to be demonstrated by a team of Japanese scientists led by Kenichi Okada the Florence. Specialists from Keio University modified the conventional inkjet printer, and “taught” him to print images that are not only bright, but also have flavor.

The work is being conducted together with specialists from Canon. An unremarkable inkjet is turned into a real olfactory display. Mr. Okada said that the printers of this type are an ideal tool for the purpose, because they release the active ingredient in small portions, which allows fine control over the printing process. The current prototype produces flavors of lemon, vanilla, lavender, apple, cinnamon, grapefruit and peppermint. The main problem that remains is complete independence of the color and the smell. The next stage of the project will be to match the pictures and the smell.

A little more than a week has passed since the IFA 2010 ended in Berlin, but it still echoes with interesting developments. The whole world has long dreamed of an adequate version of a three-dimensional printer, which will create three-dimensional shapes at a reasonable price. Something remotely resembling this dream was presented at the IFA 2010, however, the figurines were created from the foam.

On the working surface of the printer appear simple objects, letters and numbers, that are cut off with a blade resembling an ordinary rail. Objects “printed” like this leave the nest and soar upward.

This system is, of course, will not fit for modeling prototypes in engineering. But in the filed of advertising, this printer is just the perfect tool: a company’s name or even logo flying in the sky will make the audience go wow. The only hope is that the foam is friendly to the environment, as nothing is reported on that.

On Tuesday, at a press conference the president of HP, Mark Hurd shed light on the prospects of using webOS the mobile operating system, the main asset of the Palm Company recently purchased for 1.2 billion dollars.

According to the head of HP, webOS will find its use in several products, including tablet computers and printers with Internet access. “Printers with access to the Internet require operating system,” – he said.

webOS is a sensory input oriented operating system, so it was not hard to imagine it will serve as the software foundation for HP tablets. But its application in printers was rather difficult to predict.

Meanwhile, printers are one of the main parts of HP business. In the last quarter, digital printing equipment department has brought the company a profit of 6.4 billion dollars, almost 21.5% of the total profit over the same period. Besides, last year the company announced it’s heading for Internet connected printers. As a result, they have released the HP PhotoSmart Premium TouchSmart, an inkjet printer with large touch screen and Internet access.