On the blog Myriad Whimsies I discovered a “this could have been me” story of a young girl called Jovanica, who is a regular customer of a street kiosk selling 3d printed stuff. Jovanica is returning day after day with her pocket-money to buy 3d printed barrettes and hair clips. She’s a kind trend setter of the area and picks out the coolest hair toys and leads the next hair toy craze …
Jovanica is a character in a novella called Kiosk written by Bruce Sterling. According to DIY 3d printing: ‘Kiosk explores a near future scenario in which digital fabrication is so ubiquitous that we see it appear on our street corners. Where the user can ‘appropriate, sample, remix, improve, up/downscale or copy new objects and 3D-print them on the spot.’
Today we are not that far yet. Gartner predicts it will be another five to 10 years before 3D technology really takes off with consumers.