I guess this is the future’s MacBook photobooth? Using a 3D printer and a Microsoft Kinect, folks can get small, low-resolution 3D sculptures of themselves printed, as displayed at the snappily titled Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction Conference last week.
On the whole I’m pretty conflicted about how to react to this; I mean, yes, widely-available 3D scanning and printing with non-industrial tools is pretty great, but if all we’re going to get out of it are a bunch of low-res 3D Facebook profile pictures, we may want to re-evaluate how we use technology.
Still, possible applications are cute; these would at once make the world’s tackiest gifts, and cute, crushable relationship souvenirs.
