3-D Printing eyed by HP

It seems that printing giant, Hewlett Packard (HP) is setting its sights on 3-D Printing. Wired.com reported a deal between HP and Stratasys, a company specializing in 3-D Printers.

3-D printing is specifically applied to creating prototypes for different products. In the past, the process of coming up with one prototype is tedious and very expensive. With a 3D printer, a prototype is created just like an ordinary printer marks a paper with ink or toner.

Confined within a minority composed of hobbyists and industrial designers, 3-D printing would be introduced to more people if HP really embraced the idea. Although, HP intends to offer this to the more lucrative automotive and aerospace industry initially, it is not so far fetched that HP would want to push a device like this to mainstream businesses.

A further venture into the crystal-ball and this is the future of 3-D printing that I would love to see: receiving a new device or gadget at the comfort of one's home, wherein the design is just sent via the internet and came into being through a 3-D printer.