You are probably familiar with the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) acronym, which stands for a property of programs to display an image that is close to the final result, whether it’s printed text or Web page. It seems like now  the term can apply to printers as design studio Artefact introduced the concept of printer See What You Print or SWYP.

Unlike most modern printers, this model is a fully autonomous device with a large touch screen and computer platform. User prints out any material, the source of which can be a full-pledged personal computer, laptop or desktop, mobile device, smartphone or tablet. However, before actual printing user can edit the image with the simple image editor.

Since the display size of the printer corresponds to A4 paper size, the user sees the actual image that will be printed out. To start printing you only need to touch and slide down with your finger on the screen. Worth mentioning is the ink level indicator: when cartridges run low on ink, the image on the screen fades unevenly, once again confirming the main idea of  the concept — “You see what you print.”

How do you like the idea of moving the wall, an integral part of today’s social networks, to the real world? Liat Segal is obviously a fan of social networking who wants to leave messages for friends not only on the virtual wall, but also on quite tangible one. To do so, Liat invented Cellular Wall Printer, a device resembling good old impact printers.

The device is a combination of an Android-smartphone and servo motors, the latter control the movement of each of the seven markers. An “adapter” between the phone and motors is the IOIO programmable board. The Cellular Wall Printer receives messages on a smartphone (SMS, Twitter or Facebook), which it prints on any wall (or surface, for that matter).

The inventor claims that the device copes with printing well even when the printer operator moves. You can get the whole idea by watching this video:

Open3DP team at Washington University have been some pretty impressive results: it successfully printed the artificial bone with the help of 3D-printer. The hardest challenge in this case was the choice of material for bone.

The experiments for 5 weeks with various mixtures of bone meal with other substances, the research team stopped at one of them, which allows you to create a strong “details”. After that, we need only to fill the mixture into the printer and print the desired bone.

Not reported, are there plans to use similar technology in medicine, but the prospects of the method could be very interesting for the creation of artificial prostheses, for example, in dentistry.

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.