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Andrew Keen is the author of three books: Cult of the Amateur, Digital Vertigo and The Internet Is Not The Answer. He produces Futurecast, and is the host of Keen On.

Augmented reality makes prototyping easy on Shapers Origin CNC machine

Innovations in 3D printing have done their part to inspire maker-culture. We print, or at-least try to print, drones, human organs, and even medications. Additive techniques are practical and accessiblefor much of the prototyping process. However, just because we can print synthetic drugs with 3D printers, doesnt mean we can print something as simple as a walnut radio.

Shaper, a San Francisco based hardware startup, is putting time and money into making CNC, or Computer Numerical Control, prototyping as easy as printing on a MakerBot. Accomplishing this is no easy task, and the Shaper team has had to implement technologies far outside the experience of most mechanical engineers.

Origin, Shapers first product, leverages computer vision and augmented reality to take the learning curve out of CNC machining. But before we dive too deep into the innovations this small team has been able to come up with, lets first make sure we understand prototyping 101.

Shaper Shaper CEO Joe Hebenstreit explains that there are two fundamental ways to build something. You can start with a structure, lets say an ice block, and carve away material to create beauty or you can start with nothing and assemble small parts to create something greater than the sum of each part, like a house. Constructing a house is a great metaphor for additive construction. 3D printers additively print layers of material until they create an object. CNC, on the other hand, is a subtractive process where an object is cut down to a useful shape. Typically techniques like aluminum fabrication and wood carving require subtractive rather than additive construction.

To cut an object with CNC you typically have to operate within a fixed workspace with fixed materials, much like a traditional printer, so that the machine can interpret designs. Origin however can operate in any workspace with a wide-variety of materials including wood, carbon fiber, and vinyl. Almost any flat surface can become a workspacebecause Origin has a camera on itsback that is consistently searching for a specialty ShaperTape. The tape, included with the purchase of the machine, enables the cutting head to contextualize itself movement is with respect to the tape. Shaper

With this baseline information, all it takes is a little bit of computer vision and some math and you can visualize cuts in augmented reality. Hebenstreit was previously product design lead and engineering manager, for Googles Project Glass where he dealt with similar augmented reality challenges. In addition to Hebenstreit, early prototypes of the device were fabricatedat MIT by co-founders Alec Rivers and Ilan Moyer.

The Origin has a touchscreen attached behind the cutter that simulates the cutting space for the user. When someone finishes a design on the computer, they simply drag and drop it to a Shaper folder that is accessible from the device. Once open, producing a prototype is as easy as a childrens coloring book.

All you have to do to make a precision cut is drag Origin along the virtual lines and you will be able to replicate CNC parts made by traditional machines that can cost tens of thousands of dollars. As if that wasnt easy enough, the cutting head is mounted on motors that will autocorrect mistakes in positioning. Rather than line up every cut perfectly, all you need to do is get within a few inches and the machine can automateeven the most intricate cuts.

Shaper

Shaper raiseda $3 million dollar seed round that included participation from Eniac Ventures, SOSV, Founders Guild, Comet Labs, and Root Ventures. The company has plans to bring in even more capital to expedite production and continued research and development.

Origin will goon sale at9 a.m. PSTon Tuesday, August 23rd. The handheld hardwarewill sellfor $1,500 for early pre-sale buyers before ultimately retailing for $2,099.

Soon Youll Swallow Origami Pills and Get Magnetic Colonoscopies

This might be a tough pill to swallow, but the future of medicine is all about ingestible sensors. Things like cameras to scope out your bowels and electronics that detect if youve taken your medicine (recently FDA-approved, by the way).

Also, swallowable origami. Researchers at MIT have developed a frozen gizmo made of pig intestine that you drop down the hatch. As it thaws in your stomach, it unfolds. Using a magnetic field, a doctor could theoretically lead the device to something youve gone and swallowed but really shouldnt havebatteries aren’t as tasty as they lookand hurry the offending object out of your system.

Theoretically. The researchers have so far only tested the device on a model of a pig stomach. But its a fascinating glimpse into the future of incision-free surgery, one propelled in large part by magnets.

So a doctor has guided the battery out of you. (Oh and no, not the way it came in. The other more involved route.) But the battery may have leaked and stuck to the lining of your stomach. Luckily, as the pill technology improves, so will the capabilities. “In the second phase there would be another capsule you send to patch the wound or deliver medicine,” says MITs Daniela Rus, who developed the origami pill. No need to cut the patient open. Aces.

Aside from traditional surgery being rather traumatic, doctors also have the problem of anesthesia. Namely, its best avoided. And that has inspired a similar experiment to the origami pill: the next-gen magnetic colonoscopy.

I dont reckon I need to explain to you how a colonoscopy works, other than to say doctors have to knock you out for it. “The problem is, not everybody can get sedated,” says roboticist Pietro Valdastri of Vanderbilt University. “Its a very powerful drug if youve got a heart problem.”

So Valdastri is developing—with funding from the National Institutes of Health—a colonoscopy robot that uses the origami pills principle of magnetic guidance. Instead of pushing a tube through a patient’s digestive system, the doctor would pull it through the intestines using a magnet on a robotic arm outside the patients body (the device is equipped with a camera, just like a regular colonoscope). This eliminates the discomfort of forcefully pushing the colonoscope through—and the need for anesthesia. Valdastri hopes to have it in human trials in three years, so a very magnetic colonoscopy could be in your near future.

Back at the other end of the body, a company called Proteus Digital Health has skipped all the folding and magnets and developed teeny-tiny sensors for pills because, well, medicating is hard. Fewer than 50 percent of patients the world over are taking their medications correctly. The rest of you clowns are misusing your medicines. “As they go through this therapy that’s often months or years or the rest of their lives,” says George Savage, chief medical officer of Proteus. “There’s no feedback to tell them if they’re doing a good job or not, if the therapy is helping them or not, or just what to do next.”

Proteus is out to end all that. Its FDA-approved sensor, measuring just 1 mm by 1 mm by 300 microns, easily fits in a pill. Once that pill hits a patients stomach, the sensor pings a patch on skin, which in turn beams the data to a smartphone app. Thats extremely valuable information, both to help forgetful patients keep accurate tabs on their dosages, as well as their doctors.

Consider the case of a patient thats a habitual double-upper, forgetting to take a pill in the morning and instead taking two at night. They may tell their doctor theyre using all their medication, and indeed they are, but this regimen is problematic. There’s no way to address this patient’s problem unless you see the pattern, says Savage. With sensor-packed pills, the physician is able to say, Oh, I see what you’re doing. That can be dangerous.

It aint got the theatrics of swallowable origami, but it is a taste of a future where a pill is far more than a pill. Not that you should start eating batteries anytime soon. Or ever, really. Lets say ever.