Jeffrey Veen discusses Bruce Sterling and the new virtual.

Sterling’s talk was on how we can now fabricate things in real space via virtual technologies, actually replicating virtual objects via technology by inputing a model or design into the computer and then dropping the design into a special fabricating printer that prints it out as a fully formed three dimensional object. Can anyone say replicator a la Star Trek> It’s the same thing but not quite using energy conversion but definately the first step towards that sort of concept.

Sterling in part made the point that it is now possible to create the design for an object and drop printers in the middle of nowhere on the other side of the planet to create the objects.

Since the example objects Sterling brought to show off were so small, he passed a portion of a fabjected dinosaur around. One thing that struck Veen was that within minutes, the kid in front of him had downloaded a photo of the dinosaur from the web. From virtual to real to virtual again.

Kool.