News: This Device Can Turn Your Smartphone into a 3D Printer

3D printers have been surging in popularity for both professional and personal applications, and now OLO is on the verge of making 3D printing practical wherever you go. Their eponymous 3D printer is battery-powered and uses the light from your smartphone's screen to create 3D objects out of special "daylight" resins.

You place your phone in a bracket that covers everything but the screen, then put the bottom half of OLO on top of the bracket and add in the resin.

Fit the top half on, then OLO uses the light from your smartphone to heat the resin as the 3D model is constructed.

You can print objects that are either rigid or flexible.

You can print objects that you've designed with any 3D modeling software including 3D scanning apps such as Autodesk 123D Catch, or your can use pre-made designs in OLO's library or ones that have been shared online via social media.

OLO has over 400 cm³ of printing volume, and you can print multiple objects at the same time. You can also combine different resins to get effects like multi-colored objects, or translucent objects.

The OLO Kickstarter has already ended, received about 29 times its funding goal, and has started production. If you're interested in grabbing an OLO, you'll have to wait a littler, as preorders have ended. But you can keep tabs on their website and sign up for their newsletter to see when the next chance to order will be.

The printer should retail for $99 and works with Android, Apple (iOS), and Windows mobile operating systems. OLO is expecting to begin shipping the Kickstarter units in September.

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