The use of common design file standards that allow anyone, to send their designs a commercial manufacturing service.

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He posted the bodiless limb to Thingiverse -- a digital design file sharing site -- and was swamped with enthusiastic responses.

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Printing in 3D involves sending a design file to a printer that then forms a solid version of that object by slowly building it up in layers of plastic.

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Engineers working for car companies and using networked computer-aided design terminals still file their ideas directly to the server for the chief designer to approve rather than bouncing them around among colleagues for collective improvement.

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Presumably, to obtain the design for a widget will be as easy as downloading a song (both legally or illegally) because the design is all software, a small file that a CAD program would handle, for example.

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As part of my job, I reported alarming inadequacies: in one case high-grade equipment (ASME III, class 1) was operated in nuclear power reactors with no accepted safety file, regardless of a previous accident and a half-dozen failures in achieving acceptable design results.

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One group calling itself Defense Distributed hopes to create a file for a gun capable of shooting a .22 caliber bullet and may upload its final design to Thingiverse.

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It sets a new standard for thinness in LTE devices, uses leading-edge display technology, resists flexing, glass breakage and water damage, has a striking design and thoughtfully selected materials, stretches battery life, matches with a bevy of optimized accessories, and enables remote file and media access via Motocast software .

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