Makerbot announced today at CES 2013 the release of their Replicator 2x Experimental 3D Printer, an upgraded version of their successful line of Replicator 2. I’m reading the feeds as the info comes in and it’s looking good. You get the impression Makerbot is trying very hard to hit the Living  Room and the Office,…

While the politics of uploading and sharing gun components for 3D printing is still a murky topic both in design circles and political circles, MakerBot’s Thingiverse has taken it upon themselves to do their part by dropping guns from their 3D print file sharing site.

Depending on your ability to understand Japanese, this recent ten-minute segment on 3D Printing from the Japanese TV Show NHK El Mundo is a rather fun way of seeing some 3D print industry folks a la Bill Murray in Lost in Translation style. The show managed to snag some prominent guests including the Founders of…

ShapeShot can scan a human face in 1/2000 of a second. The result is a high-resolution water-tight 3D-print-ready mesh file. A favorite S.L. Jackson quote comes to mind: “When you absolutely positively got to [scan] every m*f* in the room, accept no substitutes.” And that’s what makerbot store NYC is planning to do: scan every…

Ever wonder what a 3D Printing store would look like? Mix a little bit of Willy Wonka’s charm with Bre Pettis’ hair and you’ve got yourself a MakerBot store. AND WE WERE THERE. IN NYC! Check out our video as we talk to Bre at the NYC MakerFaire and then hop on over to the…

Rumors have abounded about whether or not Makerbot is going to release the documentation for their latest machine, as they have with the Replicator and the Thing-o-matic. Open-Source is Bre’s middle name. Tangibot threw a wrench into Makerbot’s narrative to be the biggest hardware company in the Open Source world. Lucky for them, the combination…

Last week Makerbot stuck a timer on their website, filling everyone with suspense about what the heck would happen at 3pm EST today. And lo and behold, Bre Pettis delivered upon us a press conference. Not his best performance – he seemed a bit nervous. But who cares – look what he brought! A new Replicator…

Matt Strong has begun a Kickstarter campaign to sell the Tangibot, another 3D Printer. Wait it’s not just any 3D printer – it’s an exact copy of the Makerbot Replicator, and a relatively cheaper one at that. $1,199 instead of $1,749 for a single extruder and $1,299 instead of $1,999 for a dual extruder. Discussion and…

So iPhones. Good for 2D imagery. How about 3D imagery? That’s a difficult one. Yet somehow, we can say with some confidence, there’s an app for that! Trimensional is completing the digital to physical process with a new iPhone app that takes scans produced by the app via your camera to 3D printed part on…

Do you have a soft spot for hardcore hacks, fanatical fabrication, robots, steampunk and funnel cakes? Do we even need to ask? It’s exactly why we were at this year’s Bay Area 2012 Maker Faire featuring all of that and a mass of 3D printers, tons of guest speakers, Tesla coils set to music and…

You now have the perfect reason to slap on the sideburns, Wayfarers and open up the .STL files of your British-motif 1970 Jaguar E-Type. Today, Stratasys (Nasdaq: SSYS) announces their all-in-one 3D Desktop Printer. SolidSmack was on hand at the Stratasys media event a few weeks ago and got to see first hand the factory tour…

There is but one word to describe the EvD Makerbot Absurd iPhone accessory design challenge. FREAKIN’ AWESOME. Not only were there over 180 entries, but over 180 entries that served up an iPhone biting eye-feast of unmatched proportion. There were so, SO many excellent entries, but we’ve narrowed it down and the winner is…

Prepare your drive systems and Plastruders my Cartesian coordinating friends. The great “Horn of DIY Fab” has sounded and the battle to maintain your 3D print fix and MakerBot units sold is EMINENT. Since MakerBot released it’s printer mid-April 2009, demand has been so high they’re turning to the MakerBot community to keep production of…

You may like to argue about whether or not 3D Printers will go mainstream, but one thing is for sure, you can get started pretty easy, pretty soon and do it on the cheap. Prepare your fingers for nicks, scraps and beautiful droplets of layered ABS plastic. Next week, Makerbot will start shipping their Cupcake…