Whisperer

IT feels like only yesterday that everyone was getting excited by the invention of the 3-D printer. According to these futurists, it would make life as we know it today barely recognisable in the future.

“Realistically, we’re going to be living to 100 ...110. With bio-printed organs, living to 110 won’t be anything like living to that age today,” one technology trend expert suggested back in 2014.

Others predicted companies would soon be able to manufacture goods domestically, with virtually no wasted materials and no need for international outsourcing. If we can print a shoe here, we don’t have to go to China or Indonesia, said one, who also predicted the demise of the construction and agriculture industries, with 3D printing making many traditional methods of building and food production obsolete.

The Whisperer is not sure what happened, but his trendy trainers are still made in China, cheap labour from the Indian subcontinent is still building bridges and diabetes will probably kill off most folk before the need for a bio-printed liver.

Mind you, should you want to pick up a 3D printer, there was a second-hand one, reportedly in excellent working order, stuck on the noticeboard this week at Alosra in Saar.