The World Today

October & November 2013: 3D printing remakes the world

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A 3D printer in action: building up a toy robot one layer of plastic at a time. Photo: Tobias Hase/DPA/Corbis

The 3D printer is threatening to change the world in ways we can barely imagine

Articles

The assembly line of the Makerbot 3D Printer in Brooklyn, New York. Photo: Victor J.Blue/Bloomberg via Getty

3D printing is already altering the shape of manufacturing

Environmental safeguards should help shape the technology

A French soldier patrols in the street in Gao after the city was recaptured by French and Malian forces earlier this year. Photo: Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images

In a Europe reluctant to use force, Paris has emerged as a US ally ready to fight

All smiles, but President Obama expects his European allies to be less reliant on America's military might. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Since the Arab Spring, Europe has failed to arrive at a collective strategy for its southern flank

A strategist who helped write the US army’s counter-insurgency manual, he was closely involved in the Afghanistan war. Author of ‘Out of the Mountains’, he predicts that wars of the future will take place in urban slums

A wounded Syrian rebel is rushed to a clinic after being shot by a regime sniper in the northern city of Aleppo. Photo: Fabio Bucciarelli/AFP/Getty Images

A doctor just returned from Syria tells how shells are now being aimed at medical workers

From the editor

Much is predicted for the technology known as 3D printing. It will reverse the mass production legacy of Henry Ford and bring back the era of bespoke production; it will turn herd-like consumers into DIY designers; and most crucially from an economic point of view, it will bring home manufacturing from China.

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