2012 was a year of expansion for 3D printing

As 3D printing expands its influence into mainstream culture, plenty of amazing things are happening. There are a lot of 3D printing companies expanding and getting more funding, but enterprising designers are finding more and more ways to use the fledgling printing technology. While some of these uses are a bit troubling (like piracy of copyrighted material and firearms), others show that, with enough ingenuity, 3D printing can change lives. Let’s take a look at some of the industry’s bigger stories from this year.

 

 

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Global Wi-Fi shipments reached 5 billion in 2012, will quadruple by 2017

In 2012, total cumulative global Wi-Fi-enabled device shipments reached five billion, according to ABI Research. And the pace of innovation isn’t slowing, with new Wi-Fi protocols rolling out in 2013 and close to 20 billion WiFi-enabled devices predicted to be in the market by 2017.

 

 

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NTSA wants black boxes in cars in 2014

The black boxes will be able to record all sorts of information about a vehicle.

The National Transportation Safety Agency is proposing that all new automobiles sold in the US after September of 2014 will be required to be equipped with event data recorders. The recorders are somewhat like the black boxes that are found inside aircraft.

 

 

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Iran bans flights during Azan call to Islamic prayer

Airplanes are banned from flying during Azan.

The parliament in Iran has banned airplanes from flying in the country during the Azan call to Islamic prayer and allowed to take off only after 30 minutes has passed to give passengers time to fulfill their religious duties, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported on Wednesday.

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The cost of raising a child today

American families can expect to spend about $250,000 to raise a child for the next 17 years.

With Laura Sowa’s husband working strictly on sales commission in a down economy, money has been tight for several years now.  Laura lives in Nashville and she works hard to keep things as normal as possible for her two daughters.  But “normal” these days is being redefined.  This hit home for her recently as she listened to the girls playing “shopping trip” in the next room.

 

 

 

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Chicken farms turn to oregano as a substitute for antibiotics

Chickens at Bell & Evans eat feed laced with oregano oil.

Anyone visiting Bell & Evans these days will notice the smell of oregano wafting for Scott Sechler’s office.  The smell is so strong that visitors will wonder whether Sechler has quit the production of chicken and gone into the pizza business.

 

 

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The end of the paper map

The enchanted era of geographic gaffes is coming to an end.

Tens of millions of iPhone users last week found that they could suddenly leave their homes again without getting either lost or cross. Google was finally able to release an app containing its own mapping system. Google Maps had been sorely missed for several months, ever since Apple booted it in favor of the company’s own inadequate alternative—a cartographic dud blamed for everything from deleting Shakespeare’s birthplace to stranding Australian travelers in a desolate national park 43 miles away from their actual destination. As one Twitter wag declared: “I wouldn’t trade my Apple Maps for all the tea in Cuba.”

 

 

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If big data was easier to use we wouldn’t need more data scientists

Data scientists serve as the gatekeepers and mediators between the systems and the domain experts.

There are many articles today about how big data in the U.S. is suffering from a crucial shortage of data scientists.  The 2011 McKinsey & Co. survey pointed out that many organizations lack both the skilled personnel needed to mine big data for insights and the structures and incentives required to use big data to make informed decisions and act on them.

 

 

 

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