printer

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Ants aren't the only ones destroying electronics: Bored pets are, too.

- Snapcat: A photo app for cat selfies.

- Stop the presses: Today is the last day to send a telegram in India.

- RIP Google Reader: Today it is kaput.

- What happens when a guy logs in under his wife's gamer tag? Understanding sexism in gaming.

- Computer and printer prices to rise in EU because you can print copywritten stuff.… Read more

It usually goes like this. You break your arm. You get a big plaster cast. Your friends sign it and draw on it. You invest in chopsticks in an attempt to get at the never-ending itches hiding beneath. Designer Jake Evill has a better idea. His Cortex exoskeletal cast concept uses 3D printing to create a custom cast that is strong, lightweight, and full of sweet, sweet air holes.

"After many centuries of splints and cumbersome plaster casts that have been the itchy and smelly bane of millions of children, adults and the aged alike, the world over, we at last bring fracture support into the 21st century," writes Evill, who just graduated from Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. … Read more

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Let's Cafe prints images on the top of coffee, turning your cup of joe into a whole new visual experience. Plus, we help lazy dog owners play with their dogs without getting their hands dirty, and we also try on the amazing Tetris LED tie. All that and a little more on this week's Crave. … Read more

It takes a steady hand and creative sensibilities to craft great coffee art. Still, there are certain limitations to the medium. It's hard, for example, to create a somewhat photo-realistic image. Unless you have a latte printer that can do it for you.

Taiwan coffee chain Let's Cafe has a series of kiosk-like locations. It's in competition with chains that run full stores. To separate itself, the company introduced a marketing gimmick that combines portraits, printing, mobile, and a steaming hot cup of coffee.

The Let's Cafe latte printer works when customers upload an image from their mobile phone to the machine. Put a cup of joe under it and the machine sprinkles the image onto the top of the latte in the form of cocoa powder. Text can also be added, so conceivably you could make your own drinkable LOLcats.… Read more

Australia is known for its overly large bugs, like the up-to-20-inch Titan stick insect. But the country also has tiny insects, like the itsy-bitsy wheat wheevil. Researchers with Australia's national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), are trying out a method of super-sizing insects through 3D printing.

Small, sometimes nearly microscopic, insects from the Australian National Insect Collection are run through a 3D-scanning system and then printed out at magnified sizes in titanium. Why would you want to do this other than to leave one on someone's seat as a prank? The bigger versions give scientists a better look at the insect's anatomy in order to learn more about their surface characteristics or determine gender. Plus, it's just plain cool.… Read more

We've been hearing about the possibility of 3D-printed, full-size houses for some time. We may even get our first one sometime this year, thanks to the efforts of a couple of different architectural firms. Now you can get an idea of what it would take to create your own home from 3D-printed blocks.

Real estate blog Movoto has created a "3D Print your House" calculator to give you the daunting numbers involved with using a 3D printer to make your abode. The numbers are based on the time and cost of materials of using a MakerBot Replicator 2 to print out plastic bricks.… Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which I answer Mac-related questions sent in by our readers.

This week, readers asked questions on how to fix a problem with the system crashing whenever printers are accessed, how to get custom or manually installed fonts to appear in Microsoft Office, and where the wireless monitoring windows went in the system's Wireless Diagnostics utility.

I welcome contributions from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: Printer access crashes the system. MacFixIt reader jmackane asks:

VPI has been making turntables in New Jersey since the early 1980s when Ronald Reagan was president, and everyone thought the CD would kill the LP in a few years. Well, VPI is still there and is currently experiencing a sales boom.

Harry Weisfeld has been at the helm since Day One, but he's about to step down and let his son Matt run the company. Harry will continue to design turntables and tonearms. He makes prototypes, listens to his handiwork, and then goes back and tweaks the design. I spotted lots of failed designs all over the factory, … Read more