Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier was questioned by MEPs on 15 February 2012 on why the Commission had not signed up to an international treaty to make it legal for blind and visually impaired people to make braille or large-print copies of published books.

BBC: Access to books for blind people

Now, his mother prints stories he writes for the Jersey Journal in extra-large print so his grandmother can read them.

CNN: Building relationships amid memory loss

The consortium tested the practicalities of using a printer on the Moon by setting up a D-shape 3D printer, which are used to print very large house-sized structures, in a vacuum chamber with simulated lunar material.

BBC: 3D printed moon building designs revealed

The 1, 030 cubic inch-build platform is large enough print a basketball, though, one that wouldn't bounce very high.

ENGADGET

As a result, the organisers are able to know that educators, school administrators, business people, parents, policy-makers, researchers and consultants from around the world visit the site, print out large numbers of documents, sending back responses via e-mail and providing new information, including articles and other resources.

UNESCO: The Building: New Horizons for Learning

That type of design uses three parallel arms to control the print head, enabling a device that's not only "fun to watch, " according to the group, but that can also quickly print high resolution objects with a large 9-inch by 11-inch build envelope.

ENGADGET

Obviously an eyelid-like shutter mechanism would be too large and complicated for something as small as a print head, so an electrical field is applied instead to keep the film spread thin.

ENGADGET: Alt-week 7.28.12: social mathematics, Pluto's moons and humans-on-a-chip