Shapeways offers cheap 3D printing

PROTOTYPE
If you've ever thought you could design a better Troll or toaster (move over, Michael Graves), here's your chance to prove it.

Shapeways.com is a new, low-cost 3D printing service that will turn your idea into a polycarbonate or acrylic objet in 10 business days.

3D printing, or rapid prototyping, has until recently been an expensive, industrial deal: Automakers, for example, use 3D printing to test new concepts for car parts.

But Shapeways, a part of Philips Electronics, is for individual users.

The service charges less than $3 per cubic centimeter for materials. That means you can get your model bookends printed for less than $200, even much less than that if you make it very, very, tiny.

If you are short on ideas or skills, the site offers a growing library of free templates from designers.

With the downloadable Java tool Sideways Creator, you can personalize gifts with custom etchings.

I expect Shapeways' "light poem" tea light holder will be a hit. The Sideways Creator tool has a window into which you can punch in your salute to the Red Sox, or birthday greetings for your mom.

The tool then shows you a 3D rendering of the product, as it has been shaped by your words.

For do-it-yourselfers, Shapeways will screen your 3D model, to make sure it meets the design specs required for a successful printing.

robotics

Your remote eyes and ears, plus wheels

When it comes to toys, the word robot is applied to gadgets way more than it should be. That's how I feel about many of the robots available from WowWee, which makes the Roboraptor you see loping around the toy stores.

One of its latest inventions is Tri-Bot, a humanoid motormouth that whirls about and feigns enthusiasm for the objects it detects with infrared sensors. Roboraptor and Tri-Bot both make great toys. And they exhibit some cool locomotive capabilities. But neither is any smarter than a Roomba vacuum cleaner.

But there is one WowWee robot I'm excited about, for its practical applications: the Rovio WiFi mobile webcam. Think of it as an earthbound version of the Predator remote-controlled aircraft, without the bombs, of course.

Rovio acts as your remote agent, spying on your mother-in-law, nanny, or anyone else who's suspected of being up to no good around the house.

You control Rovio's movements and webcam recording via the Web (it is not autonomous), and with the help of beacons that help Rovio move about.

WowWee also suggests that Rovio (about $300 at www.wowwee.com) can put you by your kid's bedside to read him a story while you're on the road. Weird, but I'll be trying that one.

personal audio

Let's just keep the headphones

If you hate being subjected to someone else's music at traffic stops and on the MBTA, I have some bad news.

Orbitsound (www.orbitsound.co.uk) is selling a tiny speaker, worn from a lanyard about the neck, which spreads music in every direction.

The Orbitsound T3 uses a special technology called AirSound, which creates a stereo "aura" that radiates in all directions from a single speaker.

The T3 sounds a lot like a sound device Linden Lab was looking into last year for mobile users of Second Life. But the prototype speaker for Linden Lab is directional: It only subjects the wearer to interruptions from his own virtual world.

The T3, which doubles as a portable desktop speaker, reaches a lot more ears than just the wearer's. That means if you are sitting next to a T3 user on the subway, the grating sounds of Celine Dion or the Dropkick Murphys will reach you in stereo.

That's because the T3 has a near-infinite sweet spot: You hear the device's output in stereo, whatever your position, according to Orbitsound.

The T3 is clever. But it strikes me as an obnoxious replacement for headphones.