The future. Tis upon us. And once again, it’s gaming that’s paving the way. This week at E3, Bethesda Softworks announced Orion. What’s Orion? It’s “a patented collection of software technologies that optimize game engines for superior performance in a streaming environment.” For gamers, this brings ‘imperceptible latency’ to, not just one game engine but,…

Despite the growing number of options for connected note taking and options for sharing analog documents in the Cloud, most team interactions still rely heavily on the mother of all note taking surfaces: the whiteboard. Although modern smartphone apps are capable of digitizing a meeting’s whiteboard notes in a single snap and uploading them to…

Like most other things these days, digital fabrication is disconnecting from your computer and leaving it for the Cloud. The concept of it is fairly simple: connect a dongle to your 3D Printer and enable the user to control it using an online platform for printing, content creation and sharing, among others. This is exactly…

One long-standing user problem for 3D content creators has been in turning 2D images into 3D models, as we have the tools of photography within our grasp at all times but fewer tools for 3D capture. Smoothie-3D, a new and free modeling tool, doesn’t automatically turn 2D images into 3D models, however it gives a…

For decades now, the performance of working with digital tools has been contingent on one’s hardware setup and needless to say, you got what you paid for (and still do). Adobe has been working on obliterating the need for expensive hardware as more services start operating out of the Cloud with the development of their…

Are 3D CAD companies adding the features that users really want? We asked you, SolidSmackers, to tell us what you find most face-bashingly frustrating about 3D CAD tools today, boy, did you deliver. As it turns out…

Today I received a friendly email from my local SolidWorks VAR, ending with a gentle nudge: “****THERE IS NO GRACE PERIOD FOR DECEMBER RENEWALS, ANY DECEMBER RENEWAL RECEIVED AFTER DECEMBER 31ST WILL AUTOMATICALLY INCUR A REINSTALLATION FEE – NO EXCEPTIONS.” Ahhh, the sweet taste of extortion in the morning. SolidWorks 2014 is upon us, friends,…

After months of hype and speculation, the first Cloud-based CAD platform is here from Autodesk in the form of Fusion 360. At $25/month per license, a user can purchase their seat in the Cloud for less than a week’s worth of Starbucks lattes. But despite the low cost-of-entry, how does Fusion 360 stand out as…

It seems as though even less than a year ago, ‘The Cloud’ was still a buzzword for most people–particularly mainstream consumers. With the addition of services such as Netflix, Spotify, Box, and others, we have began to use the cloud without even thinking about it. As innovators, how do we harness the power of the…

3D Model-to-Print (3DMTP) is a cloud-based 3D printing service for Architects and Developers that need to take their 3D models and 3D print them quickly and painlessly. After 3 years of development and testing 3DMTP has perfected an algorithm that makes it easier for users to upload their CAD files and sent to them tout suite. Laying…

As of the next update, Linux users will have to use Chrome (or other as yet non-existent PPAPI compatible browsers) if they want to use the latest version of Flash. There is also speculation that Adobe is building an outdoor toilette for Linux users, and is planning the construction of “separate but equal” housing projects…