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.

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 team of engineers and the art from the University of Washington has developed a way to create objects made of glass using a conventional 3D-printer. Technique allows the application of new materials with similar devices. The technology is called “vitraglyphic process”.

Three-dimensional printers are used as a cheap and easy way for prototyping. In conventional 3D-printing system, which works with the powder, a thin layer of material distributed on the platform and the software controls the inkjet printer that causes binder in the appropriate places. It interacts with the powder and binds the particles together, resulting in a three-dimensional object. However, the glass powder is bad absorb liquid, therefore used in the case of ceramic technique should be reconsidered.

“The familiar process of printing led to the output of gelatinous parts when we turned to glass powder — says Grant Marchelli. — It was necessary to modify how both the powder and binder mixture are treated. By adjusting the ratio between the two components, scientists have made a solid form with a powder from Spectrum Glass. Structure held together and melted at the required temperature.

Glass can be transparent or opaque, but stands out for its inorganic form (no carbon contained), solidifying from the molten state without the formation of molecules ordered crystalline structures. Therefore, technically the glass is rather a chilled liquid than a solid material. Printed three-dimensional glass has a striking similarity with the technique of creating glass products pate de verre (“glass paste”). There, the glass powder is mixed with binding material such as egg whites or enamel, and is placed in a form for firing. The technique originated from the times of ancient Egypt, and, thanks to new technology, is getting a new life.

As is the case with ceramics, researchers see great opportunities for three-dimensional printing of glass. “Publication of descriptions without commercial conditions, we hope, will inspire further experimentation and innovation community of arts and engineers” – describes the well intentions professor of mechanical engineering at Washington University Duane Storti.

A postgraduate of Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media at the University Meghan Trainor pioneered the new method. “With the establishment of glass objects from digital models of my ideas are immediately translated into tangible form, which is a key factor in the knowledge of digital art – Trainor said. – Moving from idea to print in such a short period of time creates an attractive process, where glass objects are part tactile feedback.”

Associate Professor of Architecture at UCLA (University of California), Berkeley, Ronald Rael collaborated with colleagues to develop his own printer. He is engaged in a new kind of ceramic blocks, which can be used to remove moisture from the cooling systems. “3D-printing of glass has great potential in the use of glass in architecture – explains the researcher. – Until now, there was no acceptable method of rapid sample preparation of this material, which led to expensive and time-consuming process for testing models.” According to him, three-dimensional printing allows for testing different types of glass, including a recycled glass wastes.

Today we’ll talk not so much about printers, but about something what is nowadays closely connected to them, images.

The most popular and well known to all format lossy of image compression is JPEG. It’s over 20 years old, outdated, and its replacement has long been needed. It still more or less fits for storing pictures, although in places of resolution and contrast outlines the image still degrades and significant artifacts emerge (strength of degradation depends on the quality).

Attempts have been made to replace JPEG. For example, the JPEG 2000 image format, which uses a different compression technology and is delivered from a number of JPEG shortcomings. Another example is the format of JPEG XR (formerly known as HD Photo and Windows Media Photo), promoted by Microsoft.

However, despite a number of obvious advantages, JPEG 2000 or JPEG XR have not significantly spread. Widest support for JPEG format from programs and various electronics became a key to its longevity. Unfortunately, this format will long remain unchanged for something more progressive. Meanwhile, digital cameras, for example, has long needed a decent analogue of storing 16-bit images with a wide dynamic range and with a good level of compression

Perhaps, Google will be able to improve the situation at least on the Internet? Following the announcement of its own open video format WebM earlier this year, based on the VP8 codec, the search giant has decided to compete with JPEG. The company recently submitted a draft WebP, which should become more progressive standard for image compression with loss of quality for the Internet. Google wrote about the attempt on his blog Chromium and even provided some tools (currently only for Linux, Windows support is promised soon), through which we can already see the format.

According to the company, a new open format based on the VP8, presented to more than JPEG compressed images. The company also introduced a very lightweight container, which is based on the RIFF. This container is only 20 bytes for each image, but allows him to include in addition the necessary meta-data.

Google also notes that the advantages of image format based on the VP8, the theory is obvious. Nevertheless, to prove an advantage in practice, the company has selected a million random images (mostly, JPEG, PNG, but also GIF) and encode them into WebP no sensitive loss of quality. As a result, the average file is compressed by 39%. The company is confident that web developers achieved in practice is even more impressive values of compression, keeping the files in WebP with uncompressed sources.

According to Google, 65% of data transmitted over the Internet is now images and because the search giant has thought of providing a more efficient format for faster downloading sites and data. Google also published a number of examples of images WebP in comparison with JPEG. Some of these examples are given in the material above. Images in the new format looks much better quality (especially with an increase) for consistently smaller size files.