Watch out! Star Trek Tech is here – 3D Printing

For those of you who are cool enough to remember what the picture above is about, I want to tell you something.

It’s happening.

No, we haven’t really invented a way of transporting people by employing space age gadgetry and spouting the line “Beam me up Scotty”. But it’s fairly close to the teleporting phenomena which has long had a presence in every respectable sci-fi show or movie about space. 

3D printed Seat? Art? Anything? Who cares? It looks awesome

Now imagine, getting the Crockery Set within a day if not within a few hours because a certain technology lets these companies “Teleport” the product to a local production centre from where it is delivered to you, at little or no extra cost.

Improbable? Amazing? Crazy?

Well that’s what the world is moving towards. Thanks to 3D Printing.

3D printers work like normal inkjet printers do in the sense that they spray layers of resins (polymer or powder) and combine them with adhesives to form the object required. A laser hardens the resins as they get sprayed one layer at a time. Usually the entire product is cut into various parts which are fabricated separately by 3D printer and then joined later on. This object is formed by feeding a blueprint into the computer.

So basically whatever you can design using software, it can make as hardware (as long as it follows the laws of physics).

3D printing workshop

It will be surprising for many to know that 3D printers have been around since 2003 but back then they were large and extremely expensive. Today we are in 2012 and things have REALLY changed.

Most companies now aim to sell the home base version of this printer for as low as $350 which is around Rs. 17,500 (No idea on what taxes are applicable here). So you could end up buying this cool tech for lesser than a low end desktop! And unlike before, they look snazzy, can be set up for you office or home and almost anyone can use it.

Here are a few mind boggling changes that c0uld occur due to the proliferation of this technology

Amazing 3D print Lamp

1. Leapfrogging the Manufacturing Age – A number of countries, including India, have been facing developmental issues because a Manufacturing base was never created. All that could change since 3D printers don’t really require major government/private investments and infrastructure creation to develop products. A cottage industry made up of creative, imaginative and skilled 3D printers could leapfrog the traditional manufacturing age to a fulfilling Micro-Manufacturing age.

2. Logistics Industry – Logistics is based on shifting stuff from where it is made in the least costs and efforts to where the demand exists. But with 3D printers one could easily create production centers near the markets where the demand exists. This could change the face of logistics or even made logistics co-opt this tech to service its clients better.

Parts of the Iron Man 2 suit were made using 3D Printers

3. Hardware Piracy – Now that all you need to create a shirt, mug, chair and even TV is the software blueprint, it is foreseeable that in the future, piracy hubs could be delivering ‘As good as the original’ products once they get their hands on the right software files. Hell, rather than downloading pirated music at your homes you could be making pirated shoes from Adidas.

4. Intense Open Collaboration and Crowdsourcing – This technology will allow the world to do, what is already a major driving force and phenomena in the online and software world, Collaboration and Crowdsourcing. If millions of servers can run on free, crowdsourced software and the world considers Wikipedia the best source of knowledge today, then even hardware, which may now be infinitely customizable and shared, can be created based on the free and voluntary work of m(b)illions.

5. Reducing Development Cycles –  Automobiles, Airlines, Healthcare and Architects can now use this tech to reduce the time and money it takes to come up with a better or all together new product. With the saved time and resources one can expect not only higher quality products but also far more innovation since 3D printers take out a lot of pain of the traditional innovation model.

Citroen GT - The 2008 concept car made real using lots of 3D Printing

 6. Revolutionizing Healthcare – Creating better prosthetics, surgical implements, dental material even artificial organs will make healthcare not only far more innovative and affordable, it will lead to best practices and faster feedback since results and blueprints can now be sent across the world in a file. Villages and small towns will be able to benefit from the most cutting edge technology in ways not possible today.

 7. Localizing or Relocating Outsourcing – Outsourcing is basically shifting production and service centres wherever the cost of operations are the least. With 3D printing the skill of printers, designers and geographical proximity to markets may matter more than just the cost of labour at a particular place. Outsourcing hence will be based on the cost of raw materials for 3D printing, availability of skilled labour and most importantly proximity of customers. These factors are still the same considerations as today, the difference will be in the importance and weightage attached to them in the future.

Candy made using a 3D printer

8. Proof of concept Stage for Startups – Most Startups buckle under the pressure of creating a product that works, testing it in the market, collecting feedback and finally creating a better product based on that feedback. This process requires money and resources which few startups can manage. Hence the proliferation of services based startups where the initial costs are low. With 3D printing the development cycle will become shorter and cheaper leading to more breathing space and hence success for startups.

9. Food – No, this is not some flight of fancy. MIT scientists and some chefs have been able to create food from 3D printers which use edible material. Soon it will be possible to buy a Food printer for your house starting at $1000 (Rs.50,000 only). 3D printers let you control a number of variables of texture, colour, structure and even nutrition. In the future, it will be possible to make Hamburgers diet friendly by playing around with the structure of the food, Chicken burgers that are pure veg, whole wheat bread that is just right, pastas that taste Italian even though they are being ‘printed’ in Ranchi… Food which is not ‘Food’ will suddenly be the new food.

Stuff you can make at home!

10. Become a BOSS (Build Own Stuff Simply) – Now you can make whatever you want without having to learn a million complicated advanced skills. Microsoft Kinect (The Gaming Motion Sensor) may soon be equipped to hook up to a 3D printer and let you make stuff in software using your hand motions. So if your 5 year old can make a Lego City Model on the soffware, you can print it for him. Now that is awesome stuff!

Please do share what you think are the possibilities in the comments section.

After all, if we are going to collaborate on Hardware, we might as well collaborate on Thoughtware (Ideas)!

Megaupload and the Broken Cloud Business Model

That’s what one sees when you visit the MegaUpload site today. Its a small jpeg file which has driven fear into tons of VC funds, investors, entrepreneurs and 12 yr old file sharing kids alike.

The arrest of Kim Dotcom (Yup, that’s his real name legally changed from Kim Schmitz) and the shutdown of the MegaUpload site may just be a watershed moment in the ‘Fight against Piracy’ or whatever they want to call it. This fight has Big business and Big government on one side and scores of scrappy sites, entrepreneurs, artists, hackers and a multitude of downloaders on the other. If you have ever downloaded a song, file, picture etc which doesn’t belong to you and which you haven’t paid for, then you are in the latter camp. While this fight may be about Copyrights and other legal stuff, what it is actually about is control and hence, money. Lots of it. But that is for some other time.

Online piracy by the two companies, recently shutdown- MegaUpload Ltd and Vestor Ltd – generated more than $ 175 million in criminal proceeds and caused damage of half a billion dollars to copyright owners (allegedly)

 

The forms of internet sharing which are under scanners now

1. p2p Sharing – Programs like BitTorrents, KaZaA, Shareaza, Ares, eMule, MP3 Rocket Beta Frostwire are those which depend on no central servers to save those files. Transfers happen only through various personal computers but helped and tracked along by P2P programs. These are fairly difficult to make a case against since they don’t physically store the files.

2. Digital Lockers – Like MegaUpload and others (Yousendit, Amazon Services, Apple  iTunes, Dropbox, Box.net), these services physically store your files and let you share them by sending links for other to download. As per US laws, these may be liable for prosecution.

It’s scary when one reads the names above because not only are they big players working in perilous waters but simply because the US today has the highest number of servers which make up the cloud (the 1/2 more important part of cloud computing) and hence any law enacted and executed by the US will have devastating consequences on how we have come to share our data.

But what really worries me is that the action on MegaUpload happened in New Zealand and its servers were located in Hong kong. So the US used its political and economic muscle to get other countries to act on laws that it has created for the US.

This sort of muscle is used for International Fugitives, Dictators, Drug Trade, Human Trafficking and the likes…but for taking down a file sharing service??? That’s like swatting a fly using a heat seeking missile. Unless… It involved big money and influence. Which it does in the form of the music, entertainment, software and movie industry. Unfortunately for them, they haven’t learnt that their distribution system and business model are broken. They just don’t get it. Not all of them anyway.

While the above has many ramifications, what I want to talk about are those issues which are related to Cloud Computing for Businesses and Startups.

The effects of this move, if sustained and unchecked may be.

1. US Economy Cloud computing has ensured millions of servers are hosted on US soil. Until now, the startups running those servers/services thought they were safe ‘In the land of the Free’. That just might change. If MegaUpload could be shutdown based on an accusation and not a guilty sentence, any company/startup against which ‘resonable doubt’ can be shown, may be under threat of closure. This may just lead to lots of capital and jobs flowing out to other ‘cloud computing’ friendly regions. For a country aiming at creating higher value jobs, this could be disastrous.

2. The Difficult move to the cloud. CIOs and CTOs across the world have always had issues regarding the safety of their data on the cloud. Imagine them asking themselves what they would do if they woke up one morning only to find that their data has been seized by the Govt of USA simply because the cloud service provider might have been (knowingly/unknowingly) letting people share illegal stuff. Startups may find it increasingly difficult and tough to answer these questions raised by CIOs/CTOs.

3. Startups. Might need to think about moving outside the US or at least hosting their servers in countries like China, Russia, Mauritius, Cayman Islands, Maldives etc. Countries where neither over-burdening  laws  nor US political muscle can influence business without due process and investigation. Existing Cloud based service startups, I am sure, must already be thinking of innovative and circumventing ways to offer great services without breaking the law. 

4. Investments in the cloud computing. The Cloud has until now been the hottest sector for VC investments along with e-commerce and mobile tech. That might just change in the short term.

5. Net Activism. History has shown that whenever there has been a sudden clampdown on what is viewed as culturally and socially relevant freedom, activism has sprung up to resist change. Yin and Yang. Anonymous, the activist cyber-hacking group, has already had its say in this matter by shutting down sites of Department of Justice, FBI, Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Recording Industry Association of American (RIAA), among others.

6. Smart Phones. Unlike computers, smartphones have been designed and introduced to the general population as low memory gadgets, which help you always stay connected. This also means that with the increase in consumption of material on phones as opposed to computers, users will have to rely on fast networks, streaming and cloud based storage. With these laws, the last 2 parts could just radically change, leading to a not-so-cloud-connected world. 

7. Your Stuff. Emails, Photos, Documents, Numbers, Movies and Songs – All legal, could get confiscated if your cloud service provider might just be servicing people who are sharing files illegally. 

Imagine waking up one morning and not being able to open Gmail, access your calendar or download your college report. 

Scary? 

Well that is exactly what has happened to the millions of people who kept their PERSONAL data uploaded on MegaUpload. 

Enjoy this promotional video by MegaUpload while you munch on that.

Books that changed my worldview

The book that taught me that economics and finance has played a great part in our world wars. And that history taught by our CBSE books is overly simplistic at best and just wrong at worst.

Taught me the difference between how rich people treat their money and how poor people spend it. It has shaped my life immensely and given me a few sound rules of how to manage money.

This book reminded me that reading great literature is still a labor of love and requires great effort. It solidified my dislike for Chetan Bhagat class of books. It also proved to me that great literature is not necessarily written in English. With its multiple points of view of narration, is probably the best way to view the world.

The first book that showed me what India was really like before I was born. Dark, depressing, painful, this story really created beauty out of abject hopelessness and the travesty of life. We are lucky to finally have gotten out of the 70s and 80s.

The book that conclusively taught me, that men who increasingly control the modern world, are those who understand money and allocate capital. It also taught me the one thing I wish they had taught us in B-Schools, how the bond market control the fortunes of countries and how decisions made almost a hundred years back can affect us today.

This crack of a book taught me that everything is connected. It’s just that the authors decided to project it through economics. Which makes sense, since macro and micro development/phenomena may be expressed as a function of finance or culture or both.

Opened my eyes to the science of consumption in a retail setting. It gave me great insight into what makes us buy. Why was it revolutionary? Because this science was created by enterprising retailers rather than theoretical scientists. And now we have the opportunity to apply most of this in India.

Taught me finance, Period. I wasted my money on an MBA. If you don’t understand balance sheets, P&L statements and cash flows for you startup, this is what you must read. It taught me how accounting is more of an art and hence requires a great understanding of the rules, to be able to bend them. Essential read for all aspiring entrepreneurs.

This guy tells a story. And he tells it well. Read this book and it will give you great guidelines into how to make a business that is not dependant on you, the founder/s, but can run as an entity on its own. Also gives you great tips on how to made you business saleable. Will dedicate a post to this one for sure.

Every time I go through a tough trying time, I end up reading the Guru’s book, Seth Godin. Most of us will be able to finish it off in a couple of hours. But what it really does is that it tries to explain the one obstacle most high performance professionals/entrepreneurs/businessmen/executives face. The Dip. When things are going so bad, even when you are trying real hard, this is the book that explain why.

Conclusively proves why probability, mean, medians etc and all that math stuff which I could never get, is important in life... simply to understand that you can’t base financial decisions on them or any projection model. It states that one can never decisively predict the future in detail by working with tools and knowledge of the past. A thick dense read. But fantastic stuff. And NNT isn’t just writing this as a theory. He runs a company which bets on the black swan and bets against all the financial mathematical models crammed with algorithms.

Though the book might been seen by most as this 1000+page mammoth effort for readers, for me it started as just another book, I had to prove, that I could read. I never intended on liking it. But now I understand why it is possibly the greatest novel ever written. Leo Tolstoy explains Tsarist Russia and its aristocrats, with Russia’s multitude of battles with Napoleon’s France, as the setting. But what captures one’s imagination is the insight he offers into people during those testing times of war and how they were so different from us... and yet so alike. Masterpiece.

The Book that started it all for me, which led to my fascination with amazing companies. Though a little dated, it’s a must read for any senior executive and entrepreneur who wants to create a company not just for its bottom line, but to really make a difference. Personally I feel that’s why anyone should run a company