THE FUTURE IS COMING SOON... HP LABS IS BUILDING IT.

 Tesla Motors is designing self-driving cars. Google is testing self-piloting stratospheric balloons that deliver internet access to humans below. Amazon is automating fast delivery to build instant gratification into e-commerce. And with the internet of things (IOT), computing power could spread to just about anything that uses electricity.
 But HP Labs works at a more fundamental level. Focus areas include new user interfaces for computers, the internet of things, computing security, biotechnology and 3D printing.
 HP Labs has helped improve print speeds and is working to transform components that wear out today into ones that last ever longer and eventually never have to be replaced. But the really radical transformation will be to move beyond ink on paper.
One idea: printing "2.5D" objects that are mostly flat but that have some texture or structure -- electronic circuit boards or oil painting reproductions, for example. Manufacturing with full 3D printing.
3D printing puts down layer after layer of tiny dots called voxels that are about 26 millionths of a meter on edge, a quarter the width of a human hair. Just as printing on paper expanded from black ink to colored ink, HP is working hard to transform 3D printing with new ingredients so you can customize the properties of whatever you're printing.
You'll be able to specify which elements of a product are flexible or rigid, electrically conductive or somewhat insulating, coarsely textured or smoothly metallic, bright orange or transparent.
HP also has tried to speed up 3D printing, in line with the steady doubling of printing performance every two years. HP Labs' current effort works layer by layer rather than voxel by voxel. The speedup came by adapting HP's PageWide printing technology that delivers ink with nozzles that span the width of the project instead of traversing back and forth line by line.
HP also is repurposing printing technology with related microfluidics technology that squirts liquids other than inkjet ink. A researcher could print out constructions made of different cells to mimic tissue types, then run tests to see how the teams of cells work together.
The researchers know many of their explorations will be dead ends. But HP Labs is confident its projects overall will eventually bring us closer to sci-fi ideas.

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SOURCE; CNET.com