Autodesk
Manufacturing 2.0: The rise of 3-D printers
May 23, 2011: 5:00 AM ETThree-D printers are coming to a desktop near you. Should designers and factories be worried?
By Johnny Ryan, contributor
FORTUNE -- Three-dimensional printing is pretty wacky sounding. Imagine hitting "print" on your home computer and instantly manufacturing any number of plastic, titanium, clay, or silicone objects -- a pair of earrings, say, or a new toy for your kid.
Corporations already use 3-D printers to make product prototypes before embarking on mass manufacturing. Now a handful of technology companies, including HP (HPQ) and Google (GOOG), are looking for ways to bring 3-D printing to consumers and small businesses -- a trend that could have profound implications for manufacturing and design. Here's why: The blueprints or files for 3-D printing are digital and, as a result, can potentially be edited by anyone -- if the designer permits. More
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The Mac cracks the engineering market
After an 18-year hiatus, AutoCAD returns to the platform and is coming soon to the iPad
In an important vote of confidence in Apple's (AAPL) resurgence as a mainstream computing platform, Autodesk (ADSK) announced overnight Tuesday that it is bringing AutoCAD back to the Mac.
AutoCAD is an industrial-strength 3D modeling program for software and engineering design. According to Autodesk, its various Microsoft (MSFT) Windows configurations are used by some 10 million MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Aug 31, 2010 5:52 AM ET -
Smart solutions to big problems
Can smarter networks save the planet?
Unlike many technology confabs the upcoming Brainstorm Tech event is produced by journalists with the aim of creating a conference that is an informative, lively and multifaceted as a feature article in a magazine. Fortune writers and editors always get good story ideas from Brainstorm Tech. But sometimes the conference anels and discussions evolve from stories we've already run in the magazine or online.
One such MORE
Stephanie N. Mehta, Deputy Managing Editor - Jul 16, 2009 8:00 AM ET
