Fax me!

What if your cooker or microwave had the capacity to not just heat the meal but to prepare it? And what if your washing machine not only washed your clothes but reconstituted them into different and more fashionable clothes? And what if your dish washer repaired broken crockery to the specification of the original manufacturer?

This may seem like science fiction, but the technology is there to achieve it.

The big challenge for the white box goods providers is that whilst the Internet of Things will reinvent their value proposition, ultimately it will turn their goods into 3D printers and in turn commodity infrastructure components.

The money to some extent will be in the food and materials cartridges that enable such manufacturing in the home. However I believe the real money will be in the software algorithms that deliver a Michelin star meal, an Armani shirt or a Ming dynasty teapot graft. Essentially Armani and co will be in the software business.  This has significant implications for their business models and for those of the white box players, manufacturing industry and of course the Tech Sector.

Who will be first with a 3D print domestic household appliance app?

Going one step further, rekindling fax technology and combining it with 3D printers makes teleportation a natural next step for 3D printers!