In the forefront of the news recently has been the ability to make a handgun using 3-D printing technology. The next industrial revolution will be the advent of 3-D printing technology that will create everything from fine jewelry to body parts to large machinery to homes. Objects are constructed in layers by building from the ground up. While plastic is currently the main ingredient, chocolate, sand, metal, ceramics and sugar can also be used. Instead of shopping for shoes, you will make your own. Not only will it be able to create more intricate and exacting parts for industrial, technological and medical uses—with an intricacy not available with current machinery– but there is less waste to the process because it only uses what it needs. Human tissue will be duplicated by starting with a layer of cells that are then duplicated over and over, building up, until the organ is completed. A group of architects in Amsterdam have a very large 3-D printer, the KamerMaker, which prints Lego-like blocks from recycled plastic to form the building blocks for a house. According to what cnn.com tells MHProNews, the $777 million spent on 3-D printing in 2012 will increase to an $8.4 billion industry by 2025.

(Image credit: Inez Torre/CNN.com–making a toothbrush using 3-D printing)