Yes and definitely the end of the "throwaway" society where items are made more and more flimsy, less robustly, easier to break or wear out.
I'd like to have an upgradeable iPad with an easily accessible slot to put in a new faster processor when one comes out, stuff like that.
Of course the ultimate will be when 3D printing gets a little more advanced, you will be able to print out that new processor yourself and never go to the store, no warehouse full of boxes of these things, no shipping parts and products around the world using highly polluting cargo vessels, no manufacturing except right there on your table top. This is possible today but too expensive. In a couple of decades, the idea of "manufacturing" may be outdated.
The printed world
Three-dimensional printing from digital designs will transform manufacturing and allow more people to start making thingsFeb 10th 2011 | FILTON | from the print editionFILTON, just outside Bristol, is where Britain’s fleet of Concorde supersonic airliners was built. In a building near a wind tunnel on the same sprawling site, something even more remarkable is being created. Little by little a machine is “printing” a complex titanium landing-gear bracket, about the size of a shoe, which normally would have to be laboriously hewn from a solid block of metal. Brackets are only the beginning. The researchers at Filton have a much bigger ambition: to print the entire wing of an airliner.
Far-fetched as this may seem, many other people are using three-dimensional printing technology to create similarly remarkable things. These include medical implants, jewellery, football boots designed for individual feet, lampshades, racing-car parts, solid-state batteries and customised mobile phones. Some are even making mechanical devices. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Peter Schmitt, a PhD student, has been printing something that resembles the workings of a grandfather clock. It took him a few attempts to get right, but eventually he removed the plastic clock from a 3D printer, hung it on the wall and pulled down the counterweight. It started ticking.
Engineers and designers have been using 3D printers for more than a decade, but mostly to make prototypes quickly and cheaply before they embark on the expensive business of tooling up a factory to produce the real thing. As 3D printers have become more capable and able to work with a broader range of materials, including production-grade plastics and metals, the machines are increasingly being used to make final products too. More than 20% of the output of 3D printers is now final products rather than prototypes, according to Terry Wohlers, who runs a research firm specialising in the field. He predicts that this will rise to 50% by 2020.
Related topics
Using 3D printers as production tools has become known in industry as “additive” manufacturing (as opposed to the old, “subtractive” business of cutting, drilling and bashing metal). The additive process requires less raw material and, because software drives 3D printers, each item can be made differently without costly retooling. The printers can also produce ready-made objects that require less assembly and things that traditional methods would struggle with—such as the glove pictured above, made by Within Technologies, a London company. It can be printed in nylon, stainless steel or titanium.
http://www.economist.com/node/18114221 http://gpiprototype.com/ - GPI Prototype & Manufacturing Services, Inc.
And you can buy your own 3D printer for less than $1500 now. With further advancement and mass production the price will come down as the capabilities of these home 3D printers advances.