Three guys who met at the Fab Lab in Utrecht two years ago decided to go into business together as manufacturers of a 3D printer. The resulting Ultimaker costs only 1200 euro, and is apparently very fast.

According to Make magazine last Monday, “more than 120 printers have been sold and close to 70 have been shipped so far. It takes between four and six weeks between order and delivery. Half of the new printers have been sold in the Netherlands, thanks to exposure on a national TV program. Customers include a disabled Dutch woman whose Ultimaker has printed gripper hands for robotic arms that she uses to grasp small candies, something her previous gripper could not do.”

The printer arrives as a kit, and comes bundled with open source controller software for Mac OS, Windows and Linux. According to the manual, “assembling the unit—though requiring some dedication and love—does not require special skills”.

There are plenty of videos showing off the speed of this thing on Youtube.

(Source photo: Ultimaker.com)

Delft Prosthetics, what appears to be a spin-off company from Delft University, has just released the Tweezer, a colourful prosthetic arm with a double hook that can be used, according to its web page, to ride a bike safely, and to tie shoe laces in seconds.

(Link: Bright. Video: Youtube / Delft Prosthetics.)

Yesterday was the start of the official, lecture-filled part of Hacking at Random, an episode of a Dutch hackers convention that takes place every four years under a different name and at a different location. This year’s HAR is situated at Nunspeet, in the Dutch bible belt, and as always has a strong emphasis on debating the confluence of politics and technology.

Speakers this year include the guy who’s getting a camera planted in an empty eye socket, the people who make prostheses for 50 bucks instead of 250,000 (presumably we’re not talking about eyes anymore), IP/IT lawyer Arnout Engelfriet, and the infamous BREIN organisation, the Dutch ‘RIAA’.

If I have the time, I will report on the activities from the scene of the action in future postings.