Defense Distributed's Cody Wilson's 3D Plastic Gun, the Liberator - 3D Printer Arms Race heralds the coming of IKEA DIY Design for Consumer Electronics

“You can print a lethal device. It’s kind of scary, but that’s what we’re aiming to show. Anywhere there’s a computer and an Internet connection, there would be the promise of a Gun.”

Cody Williams, founder of Defense Distributed in an interview with Forbes Magazine on Sunday May 5^th 2013

It’s bad enough that there are so many guns in the hands of criminals. But imagine being able to print you own Gun. This is exactly what the Liberator is a 3D printed Plastic Gun made by 25-year old founder Cody Williams of Defense Distributed located in Austin ,Texas, is doing with the development of this weapon. 

Cody Wilson, a Law student at the University of Texas and a radical libertarian and anarchist named the Gun in honour of the cheap, one-shot pistols designed by the Allies to be air-dropped to the French Resistance during Nazi occupation in World War II. Cody Wilson had been working on a design for the Liberator since August 2012.

They’d first made the 3D printed Plastic Gun, the Liberator using a rented US$8000 second-hand Stratasys Dimension SST 3D printer in 2013. More significantly, the Liberator passed a successful test-firing on Sunday May 5^th 2013 according to the article “Meet The 'Liberator': Test-Firing The World's First Fully 3D-Printed Gun”, published 5/05/2013 @ 5:30PM by Andy Greenberg, Forbes Magazine. 

The following slideshow of pictures from CNET News shows the Test Firing and the  Liberator’s sixteen (16) components. These pictures should give some insight into the Liberator’s design and what it says for the development for 3D Printing:

1.      Cody Wilson fires his 3D-printed handgun, the Liberator

2.      The Liberator disassembled

It survived a few test firings of standard .38 caliber rounds before exploding when testing higher-charge 5.7×28 rifle cartridge, as the pressure of the recoil proved too much for the ABS Plastic Gun. Also the Liberator can only be fire about eleven (11) more times with a .38 Caliber round before exploding. It’s also got poor and is only good for grosse point blank shooting, as with each shot, its accuracy decreases due to effects of heating on the ABS plastic.

But the fact this Open Source Gun worked at all is pretty impressive, from an engineering and Material Sciences point of view. It has even persons such as me amazed, as I’d never imagined ABS plastic could withstand the pressure of any Recoil. The 3D printed Liberator Gun is made of a total of sixteen (16) pieces, which includes a single metal piece, the firing pin.

I personally knew that 3D Printing technology had the potential to do more as stated in my blog article entitled “MakerBot 3D Replicator Printer debuts at CES 2012 - Evanescence Brings Star Trek to Life”. It appeared to many to be a Star Trek Geeks equivalent of a Replicator, but it’s live up to more than that already as hoped in my future looking blog article entitled “Tech Predictions of 2013 - 3D Printing and smaller smartphones”.

Its main uses thus far have revolved around printing realistic models that can be used as-is. This is in essence a forward reaching concept of a Quantum Teleportation device as predicted in my Geezam article entitled “3D Printers, the next big Revolution in Printing, heralds the coming of Quantum Teleportation”. 

Even Cody Wilson’s own words back in August 2012 reflects the purpose of his project and this idea, which are really a challenge to the American Legal system as relates to access to firearms by making one that’s easily printable, once you have a 3D Printer, quote:  “Call me crazy, but I see a world where contraband will pass underground through the data cables to be printed in our homes as the drones move overhead. I see a kind of poetry there…I dream of this very weird future and I’d like to be a part of it.”.

Since the Liberator was designed, Cody Wilson purposely uploaded the 3D Image files online and has since then faced a great deal of controversy. The company that loaned Defense Distributed the Stratasys Dimension SST 3D printer has taken it back, having now discovered what the printer’s use.

They’ve been taken down of course and Makerbot’s Thingyverse website has refused to host the files. They’ve had IndieGogo Funding cut since last year. But Defense Distributed’s latest opponents surfaced on the same days as their Test firing on Sunday May 5^th 2013 in the form of New York Congressman Steve Israel calling for a revamp of the Undetectable Firearms Act, quote: “Security checkpoints, background checks, and Gun regulations will do little good if criminals can print plastic firearms at home and bring those firearms through metal detectors with no one the wiser”.

He’s been joined by New York Senator Charles Schumer calling for new legislation to ban the production and distribution of 3D Guns, quote: “A terrorist, someone who’s mentally ill, a spousal abuser, a felon can essentially open a Gun factory in their garage”.

By Friday May 5^th 2013, the State Department had issued a takedown order for 3D files that would enable anyone to print the Liberator once they had a suitable 3D Printer as stated in the article “3D-printed Gun blueprints pulled from Internet, at request of State Department”, published May 10, 2013 8:27 AM, CBS News.

But Cody Wilson’s design have found their way on The Pirate Bay and have been downloaded more than 100,000 times thus far as stated in the article “3D-Printed Gun's Blueprints Downloaded 100,000 Times In Two Days (With Some Help From Kim Dotcom)”, published 5/08/2013 @ 5:12PM by Andy Greenberg, Forbes Magazine and “The Pirate Bay now offering banned 3D-printed Gun files”, published May 10, 2013 9:40 AM PDT by Daniel Terdiman, CNET News.

Granted, there’s little chance they’ll be printed by the many who’ve downloaded the files for the Liberator as argued in the article “Why fear of 3D-printed guns is overblown”, published May 9, 2013 6:08 PM PDT by Daniel Terdiman, CNET News. Worse however, if printed, there’s very little chance it’ll have a 6 oz metallic plate installed to comply with the Undetectable Firearms Act to make the Liberator detectable by metal scanners. 

Already a pair of reporters from the Mail had done just that, disassembling the Liberator and carrying it through customer on a weekend Rush hour travel from London to Paris via the Chunnel as stated in “The Liberator 3D Printed Gun Successfully Smuggled Through International Transport Security”, published 5/12/2013 @ 9:03AM by Tim Worstall, Forbes Magazine.

But there’s a good side to this and I’ll explain via a series of predictions:

1.      Accelerate the desire for small business people, ordinary Americans and citizens worldwide to get a 3D Printer

2.      Sales of 3D Printers will increase

3.      Development of 3D Printers Capable of printing in other Materials will accelerate

4.      Quantum Teleportation of physical objects will soon be possible

After all, if a plastic Gun why not a metal one carved from recycled molten metal? Eventually 3D Printers will improve and be used to print components and parts in the original material of the item in question.

I’ll even go out on a limb and bat for the idea of 3D Printers being the forerunners of Quantum Teleportation once faster 100TB/s Fiber Optic Networks and cheaper sources of energy become commonplace as stated in my blog article entitled “Scientists demonstrate Quantum Teleportation over 90 miles on Canary Islands - Telecom Providers become Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy as FLORA Networks are feasible”.

Best of all, it’ll be the ultimate form of automation in the hands of ordinary citizens, like your own personal worker robot only for the masses, that can make you anything you desire as opined in “The Economics Of The 3-D Printed Gun”, published 5/04/2013 @ 9:59AM by Tim Worstall, Forbes Magazine. 

Thus this development is bigger than just the right to Bear Arms and Freedom of Information being challenged by Cody Wilson’s Defense Distributed clone of the WWII Liberator. It’s about the coming of a DIY (Do It Yourself) future where anything can be printed and made at home at a fraction of the cost of manufacturers.

Somewhat akin to making your own Carbonated Beverage at home as stated in my blog article entitled  “SodaStream At-Home SodaStream Fountain Jet triumphs against Coca-Cola and Pepsi - Fizzy Shakeup coming in the Soda Market as it's obvious that John Dies in the End”.

Need a part for your blender but can’t find it anywhere? In the future, the manufacturer, for a fee, may allow you to print the component required for their product via downloading the 3D files for that product. Even making the entire product by printing the components may soon be possible; the Liberator Plastic Gun is merely an accelerant for this coming IKEA DIY Design Future for Consumer Electronics future.

ASTRAEA Consortium makes first Inaugural flight of an Autonomous Passenger Aircraft in April 2013 - Greek Goddeses Daughter of Zeus are now The Kings of Summer

“The flights were part of a series of tests helping flight regulators and Nats to understand how these flights work, and what they need to do were they to go ahead and put a regulatory framework in place for the unmanned flights in manned airspace”

Representative of BAE Systems, one of the companies to have invested in Astraea (Autonomous Systems Technology Related Airborne Evaluation & Assessment)

Europeans, it seems, have something over their American Silicon Valley counterparts when it comes to developing practical Technology that POC (Proof of Concept). Despite Google developing cars that can drive themselves, it’s the European Car maker Volvo involved in a Group project called SARTRE (Safe Road Trains for the Environment) that’s developing practical Autonomous Motor Vehicles as stated in my blog article entitled “Volvo Testing Autonomous Motor Vehicles in Spain in Live Traffic - EU Project SARTRE adds self-driving AI with smartphone Control”.

Now the Europeans are at it again. ASTRAEA (Autonomous Systems Technology Related Airborne Evaluation & Assessment), also the name of Zeus daughter in Greek Mythology is a consortium of companies that has pioneered the first inaugural flight of an unmanned 19-seat JetStream Commercial Passenger Plane in Shared Commercial Airspace in April 2013 as reported in the article “Pilotless flight trialled in UK shared airspace”, published 13 May 2013 Last updated at 12:15 GMT, BBC News.

According to the article “The future of air travel doesn’t need pilots”, published May 14, 2013 By Graeme McMillan, DigitalTrends, the ASTRAEA consortium is composed of the following companies:

1.      BAE Systems

2.      AOS

3.      Cassidian

4.      Rolls-Royce

Like SARTRE for Cars, the ASTRAEA Consortium has the support from CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) and the UK Government, who’ve contributed some 26 Million Pounds to the project thus far.

The Plane took off from Warton, near Preston in Lancashire and landed in Inverness, Scotland, a flight of some 800 kilometer (approximately 500 miles) completely under the control of a Pilot on the ground.  This first Aircraft, basically a Guinea Pig to test out the idea, was flown remotely by a pilot trained by the NATS (National Air Traffic Services). In this inaugural flight, no passengers were on board, and a test pilot was on board to make sure the airplane performed as expected.

Otherwise, it was completely controlled from the ground, a lot like a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) or Drone as described in my blog article entitled “GOJ can develope UAV's as a means of giving the Police eyes in the sky - Inspiration for Aviators in Jamaica via G.I. Joe Retaliation”.

The advantages of Autonomous Aircraft are the same as Autonomous Airplanes:

1.      Reduce Human Pilot error by removing the pilot

2.      Faster flights

3.      Cheaper airline flights and Air Freight

Thus the future of Travel it seems is via the air, the last uncluttered airspace. Plans are also afoot for the development of Flying Cars, specifically the Terrafugia TF-X as described in my blog article entitled “Terrafugia’s Flying Hybrid 2013 Terrafugia TF-X to debut in the Fourth Quarter of 2013 - Shara Tibkin's Sweet Dreams of The Jetsons wants Christina Aguilera's Your Body”. The Terrafugia TF-X is basically flown by the Car using a preset flight path; the Driver is not involved in flying the Car.

The next step in the development of Autonomous Airplanes is to eliminate the need for even someone on the ground to pilot the Aircraft and instead use an onboard Artificial Intelligence program to make the Aircraft fly itself. The Ground Pilot would only be needed to pilot the Aircraft in case the plane got out of control. If ASTRAEA gets this technology right, they’ll be The Kings of Summer (2013).

Nokia Lumia 928 and the Nokia Lumia 925 launched on Tuesday May 14th 2013 - Lumia Prostitutes itself in the Public Bed with it's magical Now You See Me smartphones

Last year, Wednesday 5^th September 2012AD to be precise, Nokia launched the second iteration of its flagship Lumia brand of smartphones, 4.5” Lumia 920 and the 4.3” Lumia 820 as chronicled in my blog article entitled “Nokia launches the Lumia 820 and 920 - Lumia prostituting with the Microsoft Surface Tablet in a Resident Evil Retribution 3D”.

This year on Tuesday May 14^th 2013, Nokia launched the 4.5” Nokia Lumia 928 and the 4.5” Nokia Lumia 925 in London as stated in the article “Nokia Lumia 925: Great phone, wrong carrier”, published May 14, 2013 10:43 AM PDT by Roger Cheng, CNET News and “Nokia reveals the Lumia 925 at London event, and it’s coming to T-Mobile soon (Updated)”, published May 14, 2013 By Andy Boxall, DigitalTrends.

Presiding over the launch of smartphones was Jo Harlow, VP of Smart Devices, and Stefan Pannenbecker, the VP of Design at Nokia, CEO Stephen Elop was noticeably absent after having launched the Nokia Asha 501 in India as stated in the Geezam article entitled “US$99 Nokia Asha 501 debuts in India as Nokia throws down the gauntlet to Budget smartphone challengers” on Thursday May 9^th 2013.

Thus missing out on launching the Nokia Lumia 928 and the Nokia Lumia 925 this year, as he’s obviously jetlagged from traveling through different time zones to get back to London, a few hours later, if you get my drift! Still the Lumia brand, which is Spanish slang for “Prostitute” now drifting into the Public’s bed as the utilitarian features of having Microsoft Office on your smartphone makes them more as work phones and less as toys.

Nokia launched the Nokia Asha 501 to tackle the emerging threat to its dominance in the Developing World Market by Samsung’s Tizen OS, Mozilla Foundation Firefox OS and Canonical’s Ubuntu OS. These competitors to Nokia’s throne are coming out sometime in the Second Quarter of 2013 as stated in the article “MWC 2013 reveals Firefox OS & Tizen OS launching Second & Third Quarter 2013 respectively - Samsung's Despicable Me 2 & Mozilla practices The ABC's of Death”.

So the Nokia Lumia 928 and the Nokia Lumia 925 continues to defend their patch of turf that likes the Windows Phone 7 OS and exclusivity of sales, with the smartphone being launched on the T-Mobile Network in the US of A and Vodafone in the UK.  

As for the specs, for which I care very little, scope out the following article, merely clicking on the names of the smartphones above will reveal that additional information. I just hope that these exclusive deals that Nokia has locked itself into don’t hurt the sales of this otherwise fabulous product Now You See Me (2013) style. A full review of both smartphones is coming up in a later article as more details spill out.