Tech Talk / By Martha Knight

Cubify.com's Cube 3D printer suitable for home use, with its scanning device. Apple iPhones and Android phones can also be used as object scanners and can send files to the Cube.  Photo supplied

Several readers commented on the 3D printing I have been enthusing about. After last week’s column, where I was all agog over the MakerBot 3D printer in use at the high school technology lab, a few people have told me they are interested in pricing 3D printers for use in the home, and one thinks it would be useful in her business.

I had meant to furnish a close-up of the MakerBot in the high school, but didn’t send it in time. Maybe it can be used now. I’ll also try to get a photo in that shows a consumer model offered by Cubify for about $1,000.

Cubify’s other models would run you closer to $3,000, $4,000 or $5,000. They are larger and faster, while the Cube has a maximum object size of six inches in each dimension. But you could make parts that snap together to form larger objects.

Cubify claims that its home model has instant-load cartridges, easier to load than an inkjet ink cartridge, and non-clog technology.

The Cube detects material type automatically and sets itself accordingly. It boasts 70-micron resolution for high definition, 200 for standard. There are 23 colors available, including two that glow in the dark.

One video you will find on their site has a spiel about recycling PET water bottles into 3D printed objects, but it doesn’t actually claim you can feed bottles into your printer and have them transmogrified into stunning jewelry or objets d’art on the spot. So I believe we are being told that the material used for printing filament is, or contains, PET.

Software allows the user to paint the printed objects, and to print two-color objects.

One video shows a girl strumming what looks like an ukulele, presumably made in a Cubify printer. It would have to have been made in several parts. Also shown are robots, and those too would have been made in pieces that could be snapped together.

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There’s an article at the waste 360 site that tells of Miami-Dade County adding 29 hybrid waste trucks to its fleet. The illustration shows several impressive garbage trucks that are really elegant looking, as garbage trucks go.

These have a tractor and a business portion of each ten-wheeler (or so they appear to be) bearing a continuous design like a photo of a lovely field with blue sky and clouds above, and the text, “Powered by Clean Natural Gas.”

It would be nice to see Casella using hybrid trucks, huh? Especially since they are producing methane at the landfill they own, or are about to Of course it isn’t as simple as filling a vehicle’s fuel tank with methane gas or natural gas, turning the key and driving away.

Still, it is predicted that we will be using compressed natural gas (CNG) as transportation fuel in far greater amounts in the next decade. The per-gallon equivalency, compared with gasoline, will continue to be maybe a dollar less, according to some studies.

A major hold-back factor is the need for CNG fueling stations. There are home-tanks available, and the cost is not so great as we might think. These hook up to the natural gas line and perform the necessary compression. The obvious drawback there is that driving range would be fairly limited.

Large-scale users with big fleets encounter costs that can trim return-on-investment, and delay the point where savings are realized. Facilities must undergo modification. Technicians must be retrained in the new engines.

CNG trucks cost up to $80,000 more than similar diesel models, according to the National Transportation Fuels Council.

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Time Warner Cable (TWC) offers a Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP phone service, somewhat similar to the digital phone service offered by Zito Media.

TWC has a new app called Phone 2 that lets TWC Home Phone customers take their service with them, using smartphones or tablets.

Phone 2 supports Skype. The app is available for Apple devices with iOS 6.0 or later, and for Android phones and tablets running 4.1 and later—Jellybean, KitKat and Lollipop and whatever will come next.

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A Zito Media customer called about other matters, then mentioned his ire at learning that from now on the company will charge him a dollar a bill. “Isn’t billing customers a part of doing business? Why should the customer be charged for the privilege of being billed?”

The customer had read that the company is going to have a third-party do the billing, and this will cover that company’s fee. The customer was not mollified.

I see that $1.00 paper billing fee on my latest bill, and this advice to go green and sign up for paperless e-billing: Visit zitomedia.net and click on “Pay Your Bill” and then select “Setup Email Billing.” That way you won’t have to pay the extra dollar a month. There’s a number to call to get switched to paperless—and of course, the greatest convenience of all (for the company, too) would be Autopay, with the amount deducted from your bank account on the due date.