Back at our first P2P conference in 2001, one of the most thought-provoking talks was entitled Napster Fabbing. Marshall Burns and James Howison posited that with the rise of personal fabrication, we could look forward to a future in which not just songs but stuff would be shared over p2p networks. After all, in a world of digitally-driven fabrication machines, what is stuff but a set of instructions?(Biology works that way already.)
We’re not there yet for digital fabrication, but in classic news from the future form, we’re seeing headlines that show us moving bit-by-bit in that direction. One such headline came from Phil Torrone on the Make: blog, who reported on the first sewing pattern delivered by iTunes.
Phil waggishly noted: “ok, we got our CRAFT itunes thing going – at 11:19pm PDT the first sewing pattern over itunes was delivered a “Stretch boob tube with drawstring bottom. Hipster shorts with scoop sides.” – and i’m ok with this being how i spend my friday nights. so yes, we used a series of tubes, to deliver a tube top”
(And actually, Make: has been delivering hardware designs as RSS enclosures for iTunes for a while. They’re not yet for personal fab labs, just for human consumption, but the trend is coming into focus…)