I guess affordable is relative. I mean, the first color lasers were about five grand, and now you can buy a good one for under $500. It was only a matter of time till the coolness from the manufacturing business in the form of 3D Printers hits the consumer shelves. If I had one of these when I was a kid, I’d make my own toys…

The first affordable Desktop Factory 3D printer is just about to ship, paving the way for even more sophisticated manufacturing in the future. This first home 3D printer will cost between $5,000 and $7,000 and will be roughly the size of early laser printers. Starting out with powdered plastic, it layers the plastic material so precisely that it exactly conforms to the software 3D model that serves as its guide.

You can’t really call it a replicator yet, but when it can do a steak, medium rare, I’ll call it whatever it wants to be called.

Source: SciFi Tech BLOG