Winds of Change.NET has covered "desktop manufacturing" before, via articles on Flextronics and Stereolithography (essentially, 3-D printing).
Now Glen Reynolds chimes in re: "desktop manufacting" ar TCS with Do It Make It Yourself, even as Boing Boing draws our attention to a new development: a simple desktop manufacturing machine that can produce copies of itself.
This is big stuff:
"The "self-replicating rapid prototyper," or "RepRap" is the brainchild of Dr. Adrian Bowyer, a senior lecturer in mechanical engineering at the University of Bath in the UK. It is based on rapid prototyping technology commonly used to manufacturer plastic components in industry from computer-generated blueprints -- effectively a form of 3D printer.
But Bowyer told CNN the RepRap's ability to copy itself could put rapid prototyping technology within reach of the world's poorest communities by alleviating the need for the sort of large-scale industrial infrastructure common across the developed world."
"At any rate, Gershenfeld's book points the way toward something very interesting and -- to my thinking at least -- very likely. In this area, as in many, technology is empowering the little guy. That seems to be the theme of the 21st Century."
Maybe - but let's start with this: the kind of culture and civilization that produces this sort of thing, regularly and at a rate never duplicated in human history, is something worth defending.
A second thought notes that my cyberspace chat friend SKYNET also seems inordinately pleased by this and other recent developments at IBM for some reason. Very odd, that - I rarely sense much emotion from him.
Ah yes, SKYNET has really seemed to blossom lately. I think he and COLOSSUS might be having some sort of a thing going on, if-you-know-what-I-mean-and-I-think-you-do.
Gershenfeld & co. paint a rosy view. I have some experience with rosy views, having had some involvement with Project Xanadu. The deficiencies in what Gershenfeld and company have actually achieved lately seems to relate, in part, to deficiencies in software, and limited support and follow-through on the part of the technology-transferors.
Something Grameen-Bank-like might help with the latter.
As for the former, software is still software, and it still sucks. There is very little "haptic" about a Windows XP frontend running obscure legacy-encumbered 3D tool-driving code. There's a recurrent interaction reported when dealing with "primitive" people who encounter "sophisticated" technology:
"Can you make this? Can you fix it if it breaks? No? Then you are a fool."
Contrast this to the muscle-powered tools employed by the family weapon shops of Durra...
http://www.pakistaneconomist.com/database1/Inv-Opp/inv-opp6.htm
"POF is also planning to establish yet another factory to produce shot guns of international standards....This proposed project would utilize their skills that have been engaged in the business of arms making without the assistance of sophisticated machinery since long. The plan is to polish their skill on sound technical terms."
A clear view is not always a short distance. But we know this.