14 DAY TRIAL // Additive manufacturing has been steadily rising in popularity for some time, but there have been some major leaps in that regard, the biggest being president Obama posing for a 3D printed bust.
Now, a major brand on the technology segment has decided to devote part of its resources to the advancement of 3D printing technology.
True, it is not just 3D printing tech that the new team of researchers will be focused on, but robots related easily enough, and the Internet of Things is just one step further than that.
To be more specific, Samsung has created a new research and development team whose purpose will be to research the applications of 3D printing, robots and IoT.
The new team at Samsung
The company leadership has selected technicians, strategists and project managers expected to operate, albeit as a group, completely separate from other divisions.
In fact, Samsung seems to ascribe a fair bit of importance to the team, giving it more authority and independence because of the nature of their task.
Rather than develop single devices and yield immediate results, they are meant to develop solutions that can go with Samsung's manufacturing capabilities.
This means that Samsung intends to both provide consumers with 3D printed objects in the future and to integrate additive manufacturing into its own production facilities.
Meanwhile, the team will look into virtual reality, drones, unmanned vehicles, robots and robotic telepresence.
The reason for the new approach
So far, Samsung has been releasing products competitive in pricing, but this formula is old now, from a business perspective, so it is looking into new avenues.
Moving forward, it will collaborate more with governments and put focus on developing embedded computers and technologies.
3D printing could become an easy way to mass produce disposable gadgets and computers that would appeal to businesses by virtue of being low cost and quick to make but painless enough to discard in favor of something more advanced two or three years down the line. A type of product that could make way for new versions of itself as a business' own practices and resources move forward perhaps.
Samsung will possibly even try to make products and technologies that will be used in buyers' daily lives.