3D Printing

The universal sign for "talking on the phone" is to make a fist and then extend your thumb and little finger, then hold that to your ear, as if talking into your fingers makes any sense... but thanks to Bryan Cera's Glove One design, it sort of might.

Cera has created a working prototype of a mobile phone built into a wearable, 3D printed glove. Shown off at an exhibition held at the Peck School of Arts last month, Glove One is kind of a cool looking device - if you like pretending you're a cyborg, and let's face it, who doesn't? - but according to Cera, it's also a thought experiment. It's about the manifestation of technology as a phantom limb, a comment on how attached we all seem to be to our mobiles nowadays.

It also means the user has to entirely sacrifice use of their hand while they're on the phone; you can't take a moment to balance it between your ear and shoulder while you do something else, you need to keep your hand to your ear the whole time.

Which is kind of interesting, but we'll probably wait until he comes out with a Facebook-integrated version.

Check out more about Glove One here, at Cera's website.

Another day, another new 3D printer... hurrah! Over the past few months, we've seen several new affordable 3D printers launched into the marketplace, and it's always kind of exciting. The more options there are, the more competition there is, and the more likely it is that 3D printing will become a mainstream technology soon. So let's take a look at the newest of the new 3D printers, the Stratasys Mojo.

Stratasys says the Mojo is the lowest-priced professional-grade printer out there. It comes as a package, containing the assembled printer, materials, and a support-removal system, which costs $9,900 (about £6,160). It's all designed to be easy to use, so that users won't need any training to get it set up; it shouldn't be much more complicated than setting up a traditional inkjet printer.

It comes with Print Wizard software, too, which converts files from any CAD programme into printable files; the user just has to create their 3D model using their normal CAD software, let Print Wizard do the conversions, and then hit 'print'. Mojo prints faster than its predecessors, but also precisely, with deposit layers as thin as 0.007" thick. The support material used by the Mojo is water-soluble, so after the model is finished, users can run their models through the WaveWash 55 support cleaning system that comes bundled with the Mojo to create the finished article.

The Mojo printer is fairly compact, at 64cm x 53cm x 46cm, with a build envelope of 5" x 5" x 5". That might sound small, but Stratays has done its research: apparently around 80% of models ordered from 3D printing services are smaller than that, so the Mojo should be able to meet most people's needs.

Talking about the launch, Jon Cobb, VP of Global Marketing at Stratasys, said "The name Mojo implies magic, which is how some describe 3D printing upon first watching it." Sounds good to us!

Find out more about the Mojo printer here.