Planets scaled to sit on your desk, hold in your hand or collect in jar, these micro-wonders let you collect constellations, moons, even entire solar systems.

Made by the Little Planet Factory in London, these 3D-printed models come with various degrees of detail, from real (raised ridges for Earthen land forms) to speculative (terraformed versions of Mars).

Collectors can choose entire sets and series that work in tandem, illustrating just how big Jupiter is and how small our own Terra can be, or pick individual bodies, like a larger-sized version of the moon.

Their creations get particularly inventive when they enter Russian doll territory, allowing you to select versions inside other versions, like Venus with and without its surrounding gas clouds (open the shell to get the latter).

The post Micro-Planets: 3D-Printed Cosmos Collections for Desktops first appeared on Gajitz.

Aiming to make 3D printing a truly affordable, simple, accessible and dependable staple of everyday homes, this unit has already raised more than 15 times its crowdfunding goal with over 2 weeks left in its campaign.

Three sets of arms together move the printer head for precise control and consistent layering – it can print as fine as 50 microns.  Strong but light, the solid external housing also means that gusts of wind won’t impact the printing process, and if you remove the top it automatically stops printing. The machine takes all kinds of filaments, not just ones sold by the manufacturer, and works wirelessly with your devices.

“Tiko’s slender unibody frame, delta mechanism, and ultra-compact liquefier/end-effector enable it to print objects far larger than any similarly sized 3D printer. Like most delta printers, we started with a circular print volume. But we wanted more than that, so we expanded Tiko’s print volume into the corners for those extra-long prints, maximizing space efficiency.”

The pitch: “As inventors, we use 3D printers all the time. We love 3D printing and all the doors it opens, but we don’t like our printers. It seems like every day something jams, breaks, shifts, or fails. Even when our printers do work, they need fine-tuning to print well. All in all, we probably spend more time working on our printers than on our inventions.”

A solid-body solution without all of the messy moving parts, this new 3D printer promises to become a household item right alongside your vacuum, fridge, microwave and other appliances. Indeed, the unibody idea is what got this idea going: “In most 3D printers, the most expensive (by far) item is the frame. That’s because most 3D printers have a frame built from multiple beams that are fastened together. In delta printers, this frame is often made from three vertical extruded-aluminum beams. We had a simple thought… what if we extruded all three rails together?”

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Paperspace is a full computer you can access from any browser that aims to put your entire device on the cloud, not just a few files here and there. Its partner device Paperweight, meanwhile, is a tiny replacement for your whole home laptop or office desktop setup – computing sans computer.

Allowing you to completely customize your device just like an ordinary computer, this approach gives users access to complete, powerful and up-to-date machine; it is poised to change our entire framework for thinking about hardware and obsolescence.

If anything, this approach may be ahead of its time – connection speed can still be a limiting factor. However, as access gets better and speeds continue to increase, this will only become a more and more tempting alternative to how we currently think about computer ownership. Virtual machines and cloud computing have already infiltrated office spaces, but this is the first serious attempt to make similar options cheap and available to a mass audience of ordinary users.

Having just graduated from YCombinator’s Startup School, Paperspace is just starting to take off and Paperweight is still in the pre-order phase. More from their makers: “Unlike regular computers that are clunky pieces of hardware, a Paperspace computer lives in the cloud. It’s a powerful computer for a low monthly fee. From now on, you no longer have to buy new, expensive hardware to access a computer with more speed and storage space. It’s fast, always updated and constantly backed up.”

The post Computer Killer: Virtual PC for Full Cloud-Based Computing first appeared on Gajitz.

Developed by a trio of physics and engineering students at the University of British Columbia, this all-in-one recycler and printer grinds up waste plastics and melts them into usable filament for 3D printing.

The ProtoCycler from ReDeTec (Renewable Design Technology) is not the first reuse-oriented printer design but it combines the best elements of what is generally found separately – products that grind the plastic or melt it or extrude it – for faster and all-in-one use.

Taking anything from old plastic toys or soda bottles, it can turn trash into fresh filament at a record rate of ten feet per minute (making it the fastest extruder publicly for sale). Its materials are cheap as well – free, of course, if you generate them from your own plastic waste, but also only $5 per spool if made from the company’s plastic pellets (about 1/6 the cost of a typical filament loop).

The system can be pre-ordered for around $700, making it not the absolute cheapest desktop 3D printer out there but certainly a competitive option for those getting started with 3D printing or looking to save on material costs in the longer term (not to mention the environmental benefits).

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Paying tribute to vintage characteristics of old Macintosh desktop computers as well as contemporary streamlined Apple designs, this sleek combination features elements of iPhone, iPads and the Apple Air.

Developed by Curved Labs in Germany, the design features the best of all worlds: stylistic elements referencing classic computers but the complete touchscreen functionality and streamlined construction of newer models.

Iconic elements like the vintage floppy disk drive slot are reintroduced with twists, in this case: the opening becomes a port for portable flash drives.

Shown in gray, gold and silver and set face to face with the original sources of inspiration it is easy to see how the concept was derived but also where it departs from its predecessors.

The design is intended, in part, to be a statement about change over time, with an interested in preserving some kind of aesthetic integrity over generations of development.

The post Retro Hybrid: Remixing Classic Mac & Classy Apple Designs first appeared on Gajitz.