Ordinarily, programming an industrial knitting machine to knit a certain type of item is quite a complex process. As a result, they're generally not used to create one-offs. That could change, though, thanks to new software that tells them how to knit custom 3D objects.

My ANet A8 caught fire and I nearly burned my house down. Read about what happened and the steps you can take to make sure it doesn't happen to you! Don't assume you've heard this all before -- you haven't.

ICON and New Story are working together on affordable 3D-printed housing for developing countries, and can print a home for $4,000 in a day.

A Texas-based company is using 3D printing technology to find a solution to the growing problem of affordable housing around the world. Austin startup ICON unveiled a new method of mass producing small homes with a massive 3D printer in a process that the company says takes just 12 to 24 hours. At the annual film and innovation festival known as SXSW, the company showed off how it could construct a 650-square-foot house out of cement in one day.

To some people, 3D printing is seen as a potential start to the third industrial revolution. The printers we look at here are somewhat more modest in their ambitions. Using plastics, 3D printers have only recently become affordable for home use. One of the keys to moving the field forward is the acceptance of the technology to the point that consumers are not only aware of the capabilities of 3D printing, but also drive applications, through demand or through their own innovation.

"Once 3D printing is incorporated into our daily lives, it will help automate our mundane tasks and give us more time to focus on things we actually want to do."

Since 3D printing became more consumer friendly, it’s also given companies an easy way to innovate their production processes. Bugatti, for example, has just announced that they have created the world’s first 3D-printed brake caliper. This achievement was made possible thanks to the new material they’re using (a titanium alloy) and a cooperation with Laser Zentrum Nord of Hamburg, who helped Bugatti run simulation, design the support structures and print the component itself– Bugatti was responsible for the development and finishing of the brake caliper.

Digitized chemistry on demand could also undermine drug counterfeiters

The Swedish hi-tech firm at the forefront of using 3D printing to create human ears, noses and other body parts.

3D printing has taken the world by storm, but it currently works best with plastic and porous steel—materials too weak for hard-core applications. Now, researchers have come up with a way to 3D print tough and flexible stainless steel, an advance that could lead to faster and cheaper ways to make everything from rocket engines to parts for nuclear reactors and oil rigs.

A major drawback to 3-D printing -- the slow pace of the work -- could be alleviated through a software algorithm newly developed.

If you have been following 3D printing even for just a short amount of time, then you are probably aware that while one surprising innovation after another seems to pop up from every corner of the world, the technology has also been connected with so many others such as robotics, virtual reality, bi...

Florida's SynDaver Labs makes extraordinarily advanced anatomical models. By Eric Grundhauser.

Electroloom promised a radical new way to make clothes, but hype and hubris got in the way. By Daniel Cooper.

Dinara Kasko is a pastry chef and culinary artist from Ukraine who has gained a huge online following for her innovative cake designs and moulds.

The technique could eliminate one of the biggest problems in bioprinting.

Desktop Metal - remember the name. This Massachussetts company is preparing to turn manufacturing on its head, with a 3D metal printing system that's so much faster, safer and cheaper than existing systems that it's going to compete with traditional mass manufacturing processes.

At first glance, the line of cheerfully colored plastic skulls atop professor Laurent Lantieri’s bookshelf might be out-of-season Halloween decorations. But a closer look reveals something less than cheery: jagged holes, missing jaws and crumpled eye sockets. The skulls represent something very real — injuries that Lantieri has fixed.

This 3D printed silicone heart could be custom designed for individual patients. By Daniel Oberhaus.