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I always thought that 3D printing was not as widely spread and used, I thought it had potential but never became an industry changer. However, I was wrong. Its growth has been drastically increasing and its potential applications are huge.

 

3D printing has now moved well beyond prototyping simple house objects like mugs and toys. It has now enabled the creation of durable goods in moderate to large quantities that are sold to “real” customers. In 2014, 11% of manufacturing companies had switched to volume production of 3D printed parts or products. General electric for example uses 3D printing for home appliance parts or jet engines, the Dutch company LUXeXel uses 3D printing for light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and Invisalign for dental devices. During the pandemic, HP printed crucial elements such as ventilator valves, face mask adjusters or hands-free door handles for hospitals.

 

This shows that 3D printers could revolutionize a lot of different industries and will soon become a viable alternative to conventional manufacturing. With 3D printing, customization is also facilitated, which is very much appreciated by customers that have a growing tendency to demand particular needs. Sustainability is also a huge topic right now, and 3D printing could also help reach that goal.

 

3D printing is also become more efficient and able to print with other materials. Today it can print basic plastic, photosensitive resins, ceramics, glass, diverse metals or even cement. Some companies do not switch to 3D printing due to the initial high fixed cost as the machine can be expansive as well as the cost of producing goods. In fact, new methods entails training and a rise in the price of the materials used. However, the benefits they provide are huge: flexibility, lower human need, less timely. This means that in total cost actually ends up being lower. The performance is twice as fast normal manufacturing.

 

Companies should realize what 3D printing offers and start adjusting their businesses and operations. One thing they should consider are the strategic implication it will have when a whole ecosystem starts to form around 3D printing. Endless partners can be thought of. To allow integration of activities across designers, creators, makers and suppliers, digital platform will have to be created. For instance, they will enable design sharing or play a role in quality control or real time optimization.  It will help create standards and providing the setting for the ecosystem to be able to establish itself in the market.

 

A lot is still yet to discover. Who will be the first mover to revolutionize the use of 3D printing?

 

Sources:

https://amfg.ai/industrial-applications-of-3d-printing-the-ultimate-guide/

https://www.manufacturingglobal.com/technology/evolution-3d-printing-manufacturing

https://hbr.org/2015/05/the-3-d-printing-revolution

 

5/5 (2)

 

Elon Musk is a name you are probably very familiar with. As the head of two large enterprises (Tesla and SpaceX) Musk is in the middle of attention.

Some of you might have heard that in 2016 Musk founded a company with the name “Neuralink”. On my behalf, I had only very briefly heard about it. However, in one of the breakout rooms during our Information Strategy class, Neuralink was spoken about and it sparked my interest. Now that I have read about it more, I am astonished, and this is why I would like to share this with all of you with the hope that it will also interest you as much as it did to me.

On August 28^th, 2020, Elon Musk held a conference and updated the world on his progress in creating a brain-machine interface. But what does BMI mean exactly other than a machine that can have an interface with a brain? It is a device that “translates neuronal information into commands capable of controlling external software or hardware” (B. Silversmith and Abiri, 2020). This means that BMI could be used to help disabled people move robotics limbs (a.k.a modern-day prosthetics that are controlled by microprocessors and nerve impulses).

 

The device, the link V0.9, measures 23mm by 8mm and would replace a piece of the skull, rather than residing entirely in it. Flexible electrodes are attached to it and extend down into the cerebral cortex (which is the part of the brain responsible for numerous functions such as motor control and sensory feedback) (Lewis, 2020). The strands are only a few micrometers thick that are threaded in between neurons in order to read their activity. Each link is composed of 1024 channels to monitor the neural activity of the brain. The signals from the cortex are amplified and this data is then sent to a computer wirelessly at a rate of megabits per second. It is also possible to insert multiple links if needed ( Neuralink, 2020).

What I also find quite incredible is the way the technology is inserted into the human brain. A hole is drilled in the skull. The BIM is disk-shaped and fills in the hole. Then the skin is literally just glued back on it and the only thing left as proof of the operation is a small scar. This sounds as though we were creating cyborgs (Seeker, 2020).

 

Some of you might ask how does this device battery survives and is charged in our brain? Elon Musk announced that the battery lasts 24 hours without being charged and can be charged wirelessly overnight. I guess the wireless idea would make this device way handier, no need to open up your skull every day to charge. I do however have some doubts about how well this could work or what the consequences would be if the charging didn’t work one night.

 

So now that we have covered the technical aspect of this technology, why is NeuraLink so revolutionary?

 

Let’s first talk about what has already been done by the company. Neuralink introduced their device into a pig. Fun fact: Pigs are used for tests and experience due to their similar skull thickness and membrane than the human brain. A Link V0.9 was installed for two months in the pig’s brain and was positioned in such a way that the electrodes were situated in a part of the cortex that connected neurons that represented her snout. When the pig sniffed the food, or someone touched her snout, a screen showed the activity in her brain spinning (B. Silversmith and Abiri, 2020)

 

Another great advantage of using pigs for experience is that they can also be trained on treadmills! This allows the researchers to read neurons dealing with moving joints and they were able to accurately predict where the joints would move. This has a huge consequence on the paraplegic and tetraplegic people.

 

A person that is paralyzed due to an accident that affected their spine previously had an existing connection between their brains and their limbs that is now inexistent. Neurelink could then help those people by decoding movement impulses. If this does happen to work this could change the lives of thousands. I honestly find this mind-blowing.

 

But Elon Musk is even more ambitious than that. Link V0.9 can also send impulses to neurons themselves. This could be the solution, according to some scientists, of treating a lot of brain disorders such as depression, blindness, or memory loss. In the future the aim would be for the device to be used for storing memories, downloading them into robots, or communicating at high speed with Artificial Intelligence (Neuralink, 2020)

 

Before reaching that phase, the device will need lots of testing on humans. For now, its only use is implanting electrodes into the cortex. However, The Food and Drug Administration already provided Elon Musk with a “breakthrough device designation,” allowing NeuraLink to soon start a clinical trial on people. This was allowed as the technology was shown to be the same and not to cause any damage to the brain tissue (Lewis, 2020).

 

Skeptics might say that we do not have enough knowledge and understanding about the brain yet for this innovation to work. To provide results, the language of neurons should be understood completely. However, couldn’t NeuraLink be the revelators of what really happens in our brain? It could help to find all the missing pieces and connect all the dots. I believe that this project will become something huge in a couple of years. Some challenges might indeed appear such as scaling up the number of electrode or the interconnections between them. But, even if it is indeed a very optimistic project, the recent growth of technology it is not impossible to imagine either. Finally, Elon Musk has the advantage of being able to find a huge amount of investments to help the company grow and recruit the best scientist. I might be naïve, but I have hope in NeuraLink.

Please let me know what your opinion is in the comment section!

References:

Silversmith, D. and Abiri, R., 2020. Surfconext – Select An Institution To Login To The Service. [online] Www-nature-com.eur.idm.oclc.org. Available at: <https://www-nature-com.eur.idm.oclc.org/articles/s41587-020-0662-5> [Accessed 9 September 2020].

Lewis, T., 2020. Elon Musk&Rsquo;S Pig-Brain Implant Is Still A Long Way From &Lsquo;Solving Paralysis&Rsquo;. [online] Scientific American. Available at: <https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/elon-musks-pig-brain-implant-is-still-a-long-way-from-solving-paralysis/> [Accessed 9 September 2020].

Neuralink.com. 2020. Neuralink. [online] Available at: <https://neuralink.com/science/> [Accessed 9 September 2020].

Seeker (2020) Elon Musk Just Showed Off How Neuralink’s Implant Works. Available at:  <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB1gDYkvU3w> [Accessed 9 September 2020]