A new industrial revolution has arrived and it’s in 3D

Hewlett-Packard’s Innovation Labs, hidden deep in the hills of Silicon Valley, is celebrating 50 years in existence.

What’s been going on behind closed doors would surprise many who associate the brand principally with one of the 20th century’s most iconic perpetrators of planned obsolescence – the personal printer.

Find a home printer owner anywhere on the planet who doesn't rank her device, regardless of the brand, as one of the biggest causes of stress in their lives and The Irish Times will send you and your dishonest friend on an all-expenses paid trip to Palo Alto (not a guarantee).

Between cartridge ink selling for up to €4,500 per litre – more expensive than human blood – not to mention reports of some printer brands having built-in self-destruct buttons, it’s not the easiest sell in an age of shrinking incomes and growing environmental consciousness.

So, when one of the world’s largest printer makers was recently found updating software on some models with instructions to reject lower cost cartridges made by certain “third-party” manufacturers, the tech media came out looking for magenta, yellow and cyan-coloured blood.

"It wasn't our greatest communications moment," admitted HP chief operating officer John Flaxman at an impromptu press conference held at HP Innovation Labs last week.

“The specific third-party supplies targeted by the update had a certain supply chip that infringed HP’s intellectual property rights and posed a potential security threat. We didn’t do a good job of communicating that.”

A new firmware update rectifying the glitch is being rolled out in the coming weeks, according to Flaxman.

Birthplace of Silicon Valley

Traditional printing is still one of the company’s biggest cash cows.

Valued at $13.8 billion by Forbes this year, HP is ranked as the 38th most valuable brand in the world.

The garage in Palo Alto, where Bill Hewlett and David Packard founded the company in 1938, is also considered the birthplace of Silicon Valley – putting not only the location on the map but also heralding a new type of open and innovative business culture, now synonymous with the hills outside San Francisco.

When the two engineers opened Hewlett Packard Innovation Labs in 1966, it was the beginning of a rare commitment to blue skies research from a corporate entity.

Fifty years on, numerous interesting adaptations and evolutions of its print technology fundamentals – precision mechanics, microfluidics and materials sciences – can all be found.

Research into everything from data security, home and office “ambient computing”, medical diagnostics and interactive educational resources all illustrate how the company has broad interests in both new software and hardware innovations that go well beyond the printer.

Of particular value is HP's commitment to studying the potential of microfluidics for remote medical diagnostics, also known as surface enhanced ramen-spectroscopy – an important field of medical research where, coincidentally, several Irish researchers at both Dublin City University (DCU) and the University of Limerick (UL) have already made significant progress in.

3D printing

HP Enterprises (HPE) and HP Inc are both investing heavily in anticipation of the need for macro-scale networks – the cloud, etc – for “mega-cities” (defined as any urban centre with 10 million or more inhabitants) in the future.

"In 1991, there were ten megacities in the world; by 2040, there'll be over 40," says Shane Wall, chief technology officer of HP.

"These will predominantly be located outside of mature markets. We estimate that in just 40 years, 97 per cent of all economic growth will occur in emerging markets like India, Africa and Asia, leaving just 3 per cent in the US and Europe. "

This era of hyper-globalisation will bring with it expectations that all things should happen instantly, the same way information travels online.

“People will be able to move internationally at the speed of light, and physical products will be moved at almost light speed too,” says Wall.

At the heart of this new industrial revolution, says HP, is 3D printing technology.

"There are major implications for a world where physical products can move from one location to another at light speed," said Sid Espinosa, Director of Civic Engagement and Philanthropy at Microsoft Corporation, and former mayor of Palo Alto.

“If products are being designed in one jurisdiction, materials made in another, and then final entities being shipped (digitally speaking) to some other location entirely, we must look at things like taxation, imports and exports as well as government regulation in new ways.

“It will make for a complete industrial revolution, and it has already begun by the way.”

Thus far, existing 3D printing technology has only really been capable of novelty-scale capabilities.

Having only moved into this market, in any serious way, in the last 12 months, HP is already unveiling various new 3D printing options that are certifiably ready for commercial production.

In a space where there has been plenty of speculation around the “what ifs” of 3D printing, but little by way of concrete guarantees, this is significant.

How does a company known principally for bringing antique home printing to the masses reinvent itself for the 21st century?

3D printing seems like a good place to start.