Scotty project eyes uniqueness, sharing issues in 3D printing
A teleportation machine system this week caught the attention of tech writers this week, including John Biggs, East Coast Editor of TechCrunch. The system involves units of off-the-shelf 3D printers extended with a 3-axis milling machine, camera, and a microcontroller for encryption, decryption and transmission. Users place an object into the sender unit, enter the address of a receiver unit and press the teleport button. The sender unit digitizes the original object layer-by-layer, shaving off material using the milling machine, takes a photo using the camera, encrypts the layer using the public key of the receiver, and sends it. The receiving unit decrypts the layer and starts printing right away. So the object sent by one person is destroyed and reassembled elsewhere.