/ News
CES 2014: 3D food printers create sweets and chocolates
Two food-creating 3D printers that will launch later this year have been unveiled in Las Vegas.
The machines make chocolate and sugar-based confectionary shaped in ways that would be difficult to produce using traditional methods.
The smaller one, Chefjet, is limited to monochrome creations, but the larger Chefjet Pro can create multicoloured objects.
However, experts said their prices would be likely to limit sales.
The basic version will cost about $5,000 (£3,050) and the more advanced one double that price.
US firm 3D Systems is showing off the machines at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
It also has a new $10,000 model that prints ceramics and another $5,000 one that creates multi-coloured plastic objects.
Until now one of the most common uses for 3D printers within these price ranges has been rapid prototyping - the creation of models used to envisage the look of a design rather than to make products that could be put on sale themselves.
Sugar photographs
3D Systems developed its new "food-safe" models after taking over a Los Angeles-based start-up in September, which had customised one of its machines.
Both models can print using chocolate, or sugar infused with vanilla, mint, sour apple, cherry and watermelon flavours.
The larger one has the advantage of being able to create "photographic-quality" pictures by mixing together different ingredients that can then then be wrapped around cakes and other surfaces.
The designs are built using a layer-by-layer printing process.
Sweets are created by spreading a fine layer of the flavoured sugar, and then painting water on top using a jet print head to turn the substance into hardened crystals.
The process is then repeated to make the resulting edible objects, which can even have moving parts.
The firm is also releasing Digital Cookbook, an app to help customers - who might not be experts in computer-aided design - make such treats .
3D Systems is not the only company expanding into this area.
Natural Machines, a Spanish start-up, recently unveiled a prototype called the Foodini that can create chocolates and ravioli pasta among other choices.
Nasa has given funding to the founder of a Texas-headquartered engineering firm to build a food printer that could be used by its astronauts.
And British start-up Choc Edge is already selling a printer that can create chocolate printed patterns.
However, 3D Systems' machines would be the most advanced of their kind to become commercially available.
Printing rivals
The South Carolina-based company is a pioneer in its field.
Its founder, Chuck Hall, was granted the first patent for the Stereolithography additive manufacturing process on which the 3D printing industry was built in 1986.
Until recently it and Stratasys - a US firm that owns the Makerbot brand - had little competition since many of the technologies they used were patent protected.
However, several of these patents have now expired, letting others enter the industry.
This year there are about 30 firms exhibiting 3D-printing tech at CES, putting pressure on the more established players to innovate.
"A lot of the start-ups are producing variations on the themes already out there: variations in accuracy, in speed, and the types of plastic that can be used," said Duncan Wood, publisher of 3D printing-themed TCT Magazine.
"But there's no doubt that 3D Systems remains the dominant player in the market thanks to the range of the machine categories it offers and the size of its R&D team. And with the new products over here at CES they've really stolen the show in many ways."
While some of the smaller players may be happy for now to focus on less advanced but cheaper models, one expert at the tech show was not convinced their products would find mass appeal at this stage.
"At the moment where we are at is comparable to the early 1980s when the odd person had a dot matrix paper printer but most people went to a shop to print their documents," said Stuff Magazine's deputy online editor Stephen Graves.
"And that what's happening with 3D printing.
"At the moment all you can really do is rapid prototyping with the plastic-using low resolution ones available on the high street. They're more of a curio more than anything else."
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25647918
/ About us
Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
/ Follow us at:
/ Contact:
For additional information, partnerships and sponsorship, contact:
info@2045.com
Media requesting information and interviews, contact PR@2045.com
LinkedIn
LiveJournal
Google
Twitter
Facebook
Я.ру
ВКонтакте
Mail.ru