Start Me Up

January, 1999

Robotic dogs seem antiquated compared with the technology highlighted in Neil Gershenfeld's book When Things Start to Think (Henry Holt). A co-director of the Things That Think consortium of MIT's Media Lab, Gershenfeld shares the scoop on far-out machinery that will someday land at an electronics store near you. Among the wildest of the wild is a three-dimensional printer that does more than just pump out color images--it actually builds objects (say, golf clubs) you design on your PC. Gershenf...