Viennese Micro-Printer Markus Hatzenbichler and Klaus Stadlmann with their micro-printer

At the Vienna Institute of Technology, a group of engineers claims they’ve created not only the world’s smallest 3-D printer, but also one that’s so light and inexpensive that it could conceivably pave the way for truly domestic 3-D printing. Lost an earring or a cuff-link? Print one out (and congratulations on your fancy life). That’s the future, and it might not be far off at all.

3-D printer manufacturers sometimes think big, but there’s just as much of a movement to think small, to bring this sort of fabrication to the masses. Our roundup of 3-D printing dream projects includes both–Enrico Dini may want to put a 3-D printer on the Moon to build houses out of moon-dust, but Hod Lipson wants cheap 3-D printers in every classroom. This project, hailing from Vienna, is more in the second group.

The university claims this is the world’s smallest 3-D printer, designed to print with a special kind of synthetic resin that instantly and precisely hardens when hit with an intense beam of light. That gives it the ability to print very intricate as well as very sturdy objects. It uses a focused beam of light, hardening layers only a twentieth of a millimeter thick, which is delicate enough that the university says it can be used to print finicky objects like hearing aid parts.

The team says the prototype is "no bigger than a carton of milk," about 3.3 pounds in weight, and can be sold for 1200 Euros (about $1,700 USD). The size and price are both flexible, and could go down if the printer sees mass demand. No word on whether they’ll attempt any sort of mass production, but this is a pretty intriguing look at our future. It’s not hard to imagine a 3-D printer on every counter, alongside the food processor and coffee machine. In fact, it’s great fun to imagine that.

Toshiba Glasses-Free 3DTV (20-Inch)

A recent study found that consumers actually become less interested in 3DTV at home after trying it, due in part to the lack of 3D content and the high price of 3DTVs, but also to the problem of having to wear those dumb glasses all the time. The lack of content and high price might not have changed, but Toshiba is determined to lose the shades–and they’re bringing glasses-free 3D to Japan by December.

Toshiba announced today that they’ll be releasing two 3DTV models that use multi-parallax tech to eliminate the need for glasses. This tech is pretty similar to what’s used in Nintendo’s upcoming (and surprisingly expensive) 3DS: There are an array of tiny vertical slits in the screen which can precisely regulate what kind of light reaches each eye. That does require that the viewer be in a particular "sweet spot" relative to the screen, however.

In a handheld device like the 3DS, that’s not such a big deal: People generally hold handheld consoles at a specific angle and distance from their eyes. But a TV is much trickier, with variable angles and distances and the large problem of requiring more than one "sweet spot," since TVs, unlike handhelds, almost always have more than one viewer. Toshiba’s TVs have nine separate perspectives, though the company recommends a particular viewing distance (about 35 inches away from the larger model, and 26 inches away from the smaller one).

Multi-parallax tech is undeniably impressive; the Nintendo 3DS is shocking at first, as you don’t expect the 3D effect to be nearly as vivid and noticeable as it is. I haven’t seen these Toshiba TVs in action, so I can’t speak for the effectiveness of the 3D, but it is clear that some of the other limitations–notably price and size–are in full force. The TVs are only available in a 12-inch and 20-inch model, with specs that aren’t particularly thrilling. The 20-incher is an LED-backlit set with a 720p resolution–just fine at that size; you won’t notice a difference between 1080p and 720p on a set smaller than about 47 inches–and the standard HDMI and USB inputs. The 12-incher is maybe more like a fancy and prohibitively expensive photo viewer, with a mere (and odd) 466 x 350 resolution and an SD slot for loading pictures.

The smaller model will cost about $1,400, and the larger will cost around $2,800–insanely expensive. You could get a beautiful 50-inch plasma TV for the same price as that teeny 20-incher–but, of course, you’re paying to be the earliest of the early adopters. Toshiba is planning to release both models in Japan sometime in December.

Tired of seeing 3-D renderings of objects on your screen and being unable to grab and fondle them? Just slip your fingers into the firm grip of Japanese haptics robot HIRO III. Driven by 15 independent motors, its black phalanges provide real-time force feedback to your hand, precisely simulating the weight and contour of virtual 3-D objects — a pretty wild paradigmatic leap forward in interface technology!

In this video, a woman watches a 3-D shape on a screen, then gropes and explores it with the help of HIRO III. As the screen displays a virtual hand gripping the spinning polyhedron, the woman’s fingertips, each clipped to one of the robot’s fingers, vibrate with the movement of the virtual object.

HIRO III was developed at Japan’s Gifu University, where the laboratory is currently working towards putting the haptic technology to work in manual screenings for breast cancer. While the system obviously has great potential for use in telemedicine, myriads of other uses — gaming, for instance — come to mind as well.

3D may be the hottest topic in home video, but unless you have $21k to splurge on Panasonic’s fancy new camcorder, your 3D home video making options are going to be pretty limited. Now, however, Taiwan’s Aiptek has announced their own 3D camcorder that’s less than one percent of the Panasonic’s price, and even half the price of the budget offering from DXG. I’ve heard of price erosion, but that’s ridiculous.

Of course the Aiptek 3D doesn’t come close to matching the sophistication of the Panasonic, but it still should be plenty of fun to play around with. Rather than using the fancy LCD shutter glasses of the high-end 3D systems, viewing the Aiptek’s 3D images requires a pair of those old style red and green glasses, and using the camcorder’s screen or a computer monitor. The system is fully compatible with YouTube, so you can share your 3D creations with the world.

The Aiptek 3D will be available in August for around $200, and can be pre-ordered now from Amazon. Let the sequel making begin!

Today Sharp announced plans that could turn your cellphone into a 3-D-shooting mini film studio as early as next year. The company today unveiled a mobile-phone 3-D camera capable of shooting in high def.

The module captures 720p stereoscopic (two-eyed) video and is only about two inches wide. To put that in perspective: Fuji’s 3-D camera uses much larger, heavier sensors and only records standard-def video.

The camera on its own, though, needs help to produce a 3-D image. As with a 3-D TV or Blu-ray player, there needs to be an integrated circuit capable of decoding the stereoscopic signal, converting file formats, and then sending the information to a 3-D-ready display. Oh, yeah, Sharp has one of those, too: the glasses-less kind. In March, the company announced a small-format screen consisting of two stacked LCD screens; the screen on top only displays thin vertical black lines, which block half of the image at a time, so that your right and left eyes only see their own angles. The meshing of the two images is your brain’s job.

It’s been rumored for a while now that Sharp’s screen will be what makes Mario pop on the forthcoming 3-D Nintendo DS, so it’s only natural to intuit that maybe (just maybe) the DS will both display and capture in three dimensions. For the time being, though, it’s all just conjecture — especially considering that these camera modules won’t go into production for several more months, and Nintendo’s still mum on when the 3DS rollout might start.

We’ll be keeping our eyes peeled.

Who decided that 3D glasses had to look supremely ugly? If Hollywood really wants 3D to become mainstream, then someone better make us all look like Hollywood stars in our 3D shades.

Look3D has come out with a line of "designer" 3D glasses, including a few that are RealD-certified. They’re available in a variety of frame styles, colors and prescriptions to suit a variety of styles. Take a look at the gallery and tell us what you think. Personally, I don’t think 3D will catch on until I see Angelina Jolie donning a pair of 3D glasses on the red carpet.