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The Power of CNC Machining in Prototyping
Fast-Tracking Innovation: The Power of CNC Machining in Prototyping
Have you ever wondered how groundbreaking ideas become tangible products that revolutionize industries? Picture this: a brilliant
mind conceives an innovative concept, and within weeks, a physical prototype materializes. How is this rapid transformation possible?
The answer lies in the precision and speed of CNC Machining Service.
In the world of product development, time is of the essence. The ability to swiftly move from ideation to prototyping is a game-changer,
and CNC Machining is at the forefront of this revolution. CNC Machining, a versatile manufacturing process, has become the go-to solution
for companies aiming to fast-track their product development cycle. How exactly does CNC Machining facilitate this accelerated pace of innovation?
CNC Machining excels in producing precise and complex parts with remarkable efficiency. The technology enables the creation of prototypes
that mirror the final product's specifications, allowing designers and engineers to assess form, fit, and function without the need for extensive
tooling or molds. This agility significantly reduces the time traditionally associated with prototyping.
Injection molding is another integral aspect of this process, seamlessly complementing CNC Machining in the quest for rapid prototyping.
By leveraging the capabilities of both CNC Machining and Injection Molding, businesses can achieve a remarkable synergy that streamlines
the transition from concept to physical form. The precision offered by CNC Machining combined with the scalability of Injection Molding is a
potent recipe for success in prototyping.
But how can businesses harness the power of CNC Machining for prototyping in a way that aligns with their specific needs?
Customization Unleashed: Tailoring Prototypes to Perfection
Prototyping is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor. Each industry, whether it's aerospace, automotive, medical, or electronics, demands a unique
set of specifications. Here's where REGO, a leading CNC Machining and Injection Molding expert based in China, takes the spotlight. With five
production lines and a dedicated team of 55 professionals, REGO stands out for its commitment to meeting the highest quality standards in
customized CNC machining.
REGO's competitive advantage is rooted in its ability to tailor CNC machining to clients' specific needs. The company offers a comprehensive
range of services, including CNC machining, injection molding, die casting mold, and 3D printing. This versatility allows businesses to prototype
diverse components under one roof, eliminating the need for multiple suppliers and minimizing logistical complexities.
Who are the typical clients benefiting from this personalized approach?
Meet Mark Sheng, a discerning executive from Canada. Like many clients, Mark prioritizes quality over price and prefers products
made in China. He values personalized service and places trust at the core of his supplier relationships. REGO's commitment to quality control,
certification, efficient logistics, and secure payment methods aligns seamlessly with Mark's expectations.
Navigating Challenges, Delivering Solutions
While the benefits of CNC Machining for prototyping are evident, businesses often face challenges with their existing suppliers. Low efficiency,
delays in delivery, and concerns about fraudulent certifications can hinder the innovation process. REGO, understanding these pain points, has
positioned itself as a reliable solution provider.
By prioritizing quality control measures, obtaining relevant certifications, optimizing logistics, and ensuring transparent payment methods,
REGO addresses the challenges that plague many businesses in the manufacturing sector. The company's dedication to overcoming these
obstacles ensures that clients experience a seamless and efficient prototyping journey.
Keeping the Momentum: Exhibition Platforms and Online Presence
How does REGO ensure its services reach a global audience?
Exhibitions and online platforms play a pivotal role in REGO's outreach strategy. The company actively participates in industry exhibitions,
showcasing its capabilities and building connections with potential clients. Simultaneously, REGO leverages online platforms like Alibaba
and Google to extend its reach to a broader audience.
The accessibility and affordability of CNC machines have democratized prototyping, allowing not only large corporations but also small
businesses and individuals to bring their ideas to life. Whether it's creating prototypes, custom parts, or personal projects, CNC machining
has become an indispensable tool for innovators across the board.
Conclusion: A Trusted Partner in Innovation
In the fast-paced world of product development, where time is a critical factor, CNC machining emerges as a key enabler for swift and
efficient prototyping. REGO, with its unwavering commitment to quality and customization, stands out as a reliable partner for businesses
seeking to fast-track their innovation journey.
In the realm of CNC machining for prototyping, the fusion of precision, customization, and reliability sets the stage for a new era of product
development. As industries continue to evolve, having a trusted partner like REGO becomes not just a choice but a strategic imperative for
those looking to stay ahead in the innovation race.
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Accelerate Your Product Development with BOCHENG’s Rapid Prototyping Solutions
Are you a product designer or engineer looking to bring your ideas to life? Look no further than BOCHENG, your trusted partner in rapid prototyping and low-volume production of plastic and metal materials. With our commitment to excellence and dedication to customer satisfaction, we are here to help you turn your product concepts into reality.
Unparalleled Expertise and Support At BOCHENG, we understand the importance of every customer and project. As a full-service provider, our team of experienced professionals in manufacturing, engineering, research, and quality assurance is always ready to collaborate with you to overcome any challenge. We work closely with our customers to ensure that their vision is brought to life in the most efficient and precise manner possible.
Versatility Across Industries We pride ourselves on serving a wide range of industries, including automotive, medical devices, aerospace, and consumer and commercial products. Our extensive experience in rapid prototyping and rapid manufacturing techniques, such as CNC machining and injection molding, allows us to cater to diverse project requirements. Whether you need metal or plastic prototypes, we have the expertise to deliver exceptional results.
Unmatched Turnaround Time In today’s fast-paced market, time is of the essence. That’s why BOCHENG is committed to providing you with a super short turnaround time, helping you launch your ideas quickly. We understand the importance of speed to market and the competitive advantage it brings. With our efficient processes and advanced technologies, we transform your ideas into market-ready products faster than ever before.
Precision and Quality We believe that precision is paramount when it comes to prototyping. BOCHENG leverages cutting-edge technologies and state-of-the-art equipment to ensure the highest level of accuracy and quality in every prototype and precision part we produce. Our attention to detail and commitment to excellence set us apart as a trusted partner in the industry.
Discover What BOCHENG Can Do for You Take the next step in your product development journey with BOCHENG. Our expertise, dedication, and commitment to customer satisfaction make us the ideal choice for your rapid prototyping needs. Let us help you bring your ideas to life, turning them into market-ready products that stand out from the competition.
Contact us today to learn more about our comprehensive range of rapid prototyping and low-volume production services. Together, we can turn your vision into a tangible success.
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A Commercial Product Design Manufacturing Services
It's not every designer or inventor who has the resources needed to create a product that can appear. This is where industrial design is a key element. A manufacturing and design company will take care of all the practical and technical aspects of creating the product that you have in mind regardless of whether it's a never-before-seen invention or your company's primary product that you'd like to produce more efficiently and efficiently.
Cost is a major factor in the success of your product's manufacturing and design. Utilizing an industrial Product Design Services firm will connect you to an entire group of professionals with years of experience in manufacturing and design across a vast array of diverse industries. They've got everything you require to develop a concept from design and draughts people, equipment all the way offshore factories that provide a cost-effective solution to the bulk manufacturing process.
One of the main benefits that comes with the use of an industrial design service is their expertise in bringing ideas from the initial phase to a functioning prototype. You may have the most amazing concept for a profitable product, but if you don't have the knowledge and contacts to transform your sketch drawn on napkins into professionally designed diagrams and a functioning prototype, you'll never make it happen.
A reputable design firm can provide industry-standard designs and specifications that represent your vision in a real material. The industrial design service can also be capable of recommending the appropriate manufacturing techniques and materials to bring your concept to reality in the most efficient and cost-effective way.
The possibilities are yours, of course, However, now you have a chance to make your concepts come quickly and efficiently to fruition without spending time and money to put together large-scale prototypes with techniques and materials that do not fit your idea. A company that designs industrial products can help you make the only edge you're able to afford to cut, and cut out the time-consuming and excessive spending that occurs when an excellent idea comes into contact with someone with no prior expertise in the design and construction of products!
A good design and manufacturing partner can provide you with an all-inclusive package that includes aesthetics as well as the branding style of your idea and its operational functions. The most successful designs, in the end, combine how they look and feel to what they accomplish. The long-term viability of your product could be altered or destroyed by the way that your logo shows up on your product or by the colors you've chosen for it.
Along the technical and manufacturing design experts as well as industrial design team will be on hand to give you valuable advice regarding the appearance of your product from the design of the buttons to its color and shape. Don't you want to risk making a mistake when a single 'do it all expert can aid you in getting it right every time?
Dolphin provides a range of products for design and injection molding, production and assembly as well as quality inspection. We are a leading supplier of product solutions as well as a manufacturer and manufacturer in the field. BR Orgel Clock Product design Engineering, Prototyping, and manufacturing services. Get more info about Product Manufacturing Services, Visit here: https://dolphinindustry.com
The facility covers an area of 5000 square meters and employs more than 200 people. It has a highly skilled design team in the area of technical control and management team that is proficient in 3D, plane electronic engineering, and structure and has a powerful technological force. It has been exporting to Japan for many years. The Japanese market for a long time with rigorous quality control. It has partnered with a variety of well-known brands and has passed the social responsibility certification as well as quality inspection.
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The Ultimate Guide Concerning 3D Printing?
In the last few decades 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing has become an effective manufacturing technique used in many sectors. Do you know what 3D printing is, how it functions and what are its possibilities of its use?
Basics of 3D printing
3D printing is a cutting-edge manufacturing method that can be used to make prototypes, proofs or even finished products. Businesses are using professional 3d scanner at various stages of their manufacturing processes in order to change their strategy for business and increase their competitive advantage.
This innovative technology is used by engineers, designers, and enthusiasts. 3D printing is a technique that creates objects layer-by-layer from an 3D file. It is essentially giving you the capability to transform the digital image of an object a physical version.
What is the process behind 3D printing function?
There are a variety of ways to 3D print. Many people still think about FDM when they think about 3D printing. However, 3D printing is more than it seems. There are a variety of options and techniques to produce parts that can be printed additively. The choice of 3D printing technology and the material is determined by the requirements of your idea.
3D printing has many advantages
3D printing is a great way to create products with a variety of benefits However, they also provide particular advantages for various applications and sectors. While implementing this technology in your company, you'll need to correctly identify your opportunities in order to reap the benefits of additive manufacturing and all its advantages for your business. Let's look at the main benefits of 3D printers.
Product development and prototyping can be accomplished quicker
It is well-known that 3D manufacturing is a rapid prototyping technique. But do you actually know the reason behind this? 3D printing can be done faster than traditional manufacturing techniques in the creation of a prototype or proof of concept.
It is indeed possible to make iterations quickly by using this method Print a version, and it's then possible to edit your 3D file directly on the printer 3D laser scanner and print a fresh version to check if the final result is in line with your requirements. You can create a new version if the one you have printed does not match your specifications. Rapid prototyping is possible by using additive manufacturing!
Working on better designs and products
3D printing can produce items with superior designs. This means that items can be made to be fully optimized using 3D printing. How is this possible? You can enhance existing products by using additive manufacturing. The method of layer-by layer lets you create objects in one piece and, for some projects, it may be utilized to reduce the assembly procedure. Because of this, designs that are difficult to design using traditional manufacturing techniques can be created using this 3D method.
3D printing is a technique to create products
The use of additive manufacturing for production is increasing, not just for prototyping. The parts that come out of 3d printing service are similar to the ones made by injection molding. For example 3D printing using resin can be used to achieve the highest levels of precision.
It's much easier to create a mass-customized version
Mass customization is a great advantage of additive manufacturing. Making custom-made products is simpler to produce, quicker and more affordable. Additionally, mass-customization is an asset in various fields like medical as we will focus on a little bit later.
3D printing lets you create different versions of the same item, with components that are tailored to each person. This can be an excellent asset for glasses, fashion, or medical.
Each 3D printer method comes with its own advantages and drawbacks. Every sector and each project will have different requirements. This will help you select the best process and material to suit your 3D printing needs.
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Fictiv nabs $35M to build out the ‘AWS of hardware manufacturing’
Hardware may indeed be hard, but a startup that’s built a platform that might help buck that idea by making hardware a little easier to produce has announced some more funding to continue building out its platform.
Fictiv, which positions itself as the “AWS of hardware��, providing a platform for those wanting to design and manufacture items, to easily evaluate and order the manufacturing, and subsequent movement of those goods, has raised $35 million.
It will be using the money to continue building out its platform and the supply chain that underpins Fictiv’s business, which the startup describes as the “Digital Manufacturing Ecosystem.”
David Evans, the CEO and founder, said that the focus of the company has been and will continue to be jobs that are highly specialised, and ultimately not mass-produced items, such as prototypes or objects that are specialised and by their nature not aimed at mass markets, such as particular medical devices.
“We are focused on 1,000 to 10,000,” he said in an interview. “This is the range where most products still die.”
The round — a Series D — is coming from a mix of strategic and financial investors. Led by 40 North Ventures, it also includes Honeywell, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., Adit Ventures, and M20 (Microsoft’s strategic investment arm), as well as past backers Accel, G2VP, and Bill Gates.
The round brings the total raised by Fictiv to $92 million, and its valuation is not being disclosed
Evans said that the last couple of years since its previous round ($33 million raised in early 2019) have well and truly tested the business concept that he envisioned when first establishing the startup.
Even before the pandemic, “we had no idea what the trade wars between the U.S. and China would do.”
Quite abruptly, the supply chain got completely “crunched, with everything shut down” in China over those disputes, at which point, Fictiv shifted manufacturing to other parts of Asia such as India, and to the U.S. That ended up helping the company when the first wave of Covid-19 hit, initially in China.
Then came the global outbreak, and Fictiv found itself shifting yet again as plants shut down in the countries where it had recently opened. Then, with trade issues cooled down, Fictiv again reignited relationships and operations in China, where Covid had been contained early, to continue working there.
“I guess we were just in the right places at the right time,” he said.
The startup made its name early on with building prototypes for tech companies neighboring it in the Bay Area, startups build VR and other gadgets, with services that included injection molding, CNC machining, 3D printing and urethane casting, with customers using cloud-based software to design and order parts, which then were routed by Fictiv to the plants best suited to make them.
These days, while that business continues, Fictiv is also working with very large global multinationals on their efforts with smaller-scale manufacturing, products that are either new or unable to be tooled as efficiently in their existing factories.
Work that it does for Honeywell, for example, includes mostly hardware for its aerospace division. Medical devices and robotics are two other big areas for the company currently, it said.
But Evans and his investors are careful not to describe what they do as specifically industrial technology.
“Industrial tech is a misnomer. I think of this as digital transformation, cloud-based SaaS and AI,” said Marianne Wu, the MD of 40 North. “The baggage of industrial tech tells you everything about the opportunity.”
Fictiv’s pitch is that by taking on the supply-chain management of producing hardware for a business, it can produce hardware using its platform in a week, a process that might have previously taken 3 months to complete, which can mean lower costs and more efficiency.
“And when you speed up development, you see more products getting introduced,” he said.
There is still a lot of work to be done, however. One of the big sticking points in manufacturing has been the carbon footprint that it creates in production, and also in terms of the resulting goods that are produced.
That will likely become even more of an issue, if the Biden Administration follows through on its own commitments to reduce emissions and to lean more on companies to follow through for those ends.
Evans is all too aware of that issue and accepts that manufacturing may be one of the hardest to shift.
“Sustainability and manufacturing are not synonymous,” he admits. And while materials and manufacturing will take longer to evolve, for now, he said the focus has been on how to implement better private and public and carbon credits programs. He envisions a better market for carbon credits, he said, with Fictiv doing its part with the launch of its own tool for measuring this.
“Sustainability is ripe for disruption, and we hope to have the first carbon-neutral shipping program, giving customers better choice for more sustainability. It’s on the shoulders of companies like us to drive this.”
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The future of 3D Printing: Impact on Businesses, Workforces, and Societies
We find ourselves on the cusp of another industrial revolution. 3D printing has reached a tipping point, and it’s about to become mainstream in a big way. While many engineers and hobbyists have used this innovative manufacturing technology in their daily work, much of the general public is still unaware of this powerful new tool. However, this is about to change as 3D printing continues to become more accessible.
At its core, 3D printing is a process that allows for the creation of solid objects from digital files. Also known as additive manufacturing, this technique is unique from other manufacturing techniques. Traditionally, manufacturing has relied on subtractive techniques, which require huge machines that cost tens of thousands of dollars.
On the other hand, 3D printing can be accomplished on desktop-friendly machines. Using affordable materials like plastics, these printers can create everything from novelty figurines to hard-to-find automotive parts. Believe it or not, NASA even uses a 3D printer on the International Space Station to print custom tools!
Affordability, accessibility, and a shallow learning curve combine to drive the impact of 3D printing on businesses, workforces, and societies.
Impact on Businesses
In 2019, 51% of enterprises actively used 3D printing in production, largely for proof of concept and prototype testing. When over half of businesses adopt a technology, it’s no longer a fad. Instead, it’s the future, and additive manufacturing is poised to transform the way organizations around the world approach manufacturing, supply chains, and beyond.
Some of the key impacts that 3D printing will have on businesses include:
• Rapid Prototyping: 3D printing allows for small batches of parts to be created in only a few hours. This has given rise to the art of rapid prototyping, which enables businesses to test a new concept or idea in days instead of weeks. Popular toymaker Hasbro leverages this approach when designing new products, which allows them to get to market faster than their competitors.
• Lower Manufacturing Costs: Transitioning early-stage manufacturing processes from traditional methods to 3D printing leads to lower manufacturing costs. In most cases, it’s much cheaper to create prototypes, jigs, tooling, and fixtures using additive manufacturing. However, processes like injection molding are still more affordable at scale, so shifting all manufacturing to 3D printing is not yet practical.
• Fewer Supply Chain Woes: 3D printing files can be viewed as the storage of spare parts in the cloud. It’s the perfect solution for low volume parts that are only needed on occasion. Parts can be designed in Europe or Asia and then manufactured in North America over the course of a single day, which completely redefines the supply chain. When leveraged effectively, additive manufacturing can eliminate the cost and time of shipping for certain components.
However, there’s good news to be had. 3D printing is poised to positively impact workforces in several ways, including:
• New Job Growth: While job growth in traditional manufacturing sectors is floundering, additive manufacturing is driving job growth in key areas. From 3D computer-aided design (CAD) to equipment technicians, there are an exciting number of new job openings driven by this innovation. Better yet, initiatives are in the works to retrain displaced blue-collar manufacturing workers for white-collar jobs in 3D printing.
• Freelance Manufacturing: The widespread availability of affordable 3D printers is leading to the creation of freelance manufacturing opportunities. For example, websites like Shapeways allow anyone to open their own 3D print shop online. This presents a fantastic opportunity for entrepreneurial individuals who want to pursue modern manufacturing opportunities.
• Educational Opportunities: While today’s workforce is working to adapt to a world with 3D printing, future generations will benefit from more educational opportunities. Additive manufacturing is already becoming a key component of high school, with a number of post-secondary offerings also under development. Look for the next generation of workforce professionals to be well-versed in additive manufacturing fundamentals.
This is a truly exciting time for workforce professionals interested in additive manufacturing. Nevertheless, one could argue that the greatest impacts of 3D printing will be on society as a whole.
Impact on Societies
Amazon and other digital retailers have driven the rise of throw-away culture. After all, why should you spend the time to repair something if a replacement is just a few clicks away? While this is a reasonable argument, it’s impossible to maintain in a world grappling with the early effects of climate change.
Thankfully, the growing popularity of 3D printing is revitalizing the practicality of repair, which could have massive impacts on our world:
• Maker Culture: Consumer-grade 3D printers are a direct result of maker culture, a movement using modern technology to redefine DIY repairs. The maker movement encourages individuals to leverage additive manufacturing to make the most out of what they already have, which is key to sustainability. From household repairs to unique designs, there are 3D printing ideas for everyone.
• A New Generation of Innovators: In the 1980s, the growth of computers led to a generation of innovators. In many ways, the development of 3D printing is mirroring this trend. Dozens of innovators and business leaders are already leading the way with this new technology.
3D printing is already having a profound impact on businesses, workforces, and societies. Believe it or not, this is just the beginning of an exciting trend. As 3D printers continue to improve and become more affordable, look for innovation to become the new normal in the world of additive manufacturing.
About Author:
Dr. Gaddam is a seasoned entrepreneur, angel investor, and author. Dr. Gaddam’ s greatest accomplishment lies in raising ERP Analysts, Inc. from a two-person organization to eighty-five-million-dollar firm. ERP Analysts, Inc. has been recognized as one of the fastest-growing companies by Inc. 5000 for ten years, Deloitte Fast 500, & Business First Fast 50 for several years. ERP Analysts is recognized as a “Best Places to Work” in Ohio for several years (www.erpagroup.com). Dr. Gaddam graduated the Doctor of Management (DM) from Case Western Reserve University, MBA from the Ohio State University, and the Owner President Management program (OPM 43) from Harvard Business School. He is the author of the book “Destination Success: Discovering the Entrepreneurial Journey” and also co-author of “Roadmap to Success,” with Deepak Chopra, Ken Blanchard, and other entrepreneurial leaders.
#ERPA#Innovation#enterprise#manufacturing#3dprinting#workforces#societies#business#prototyping#supply chain#educational#opportunities#innovators#maker culture#production#organisations
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The Importance of B2B Storytelling
Telling and listening to stories comes naturally to people across the globe. From ancient to modern times, storytelling has remained a constant throughout the evolution of the human race.
Stories in different forms get passed from one generation to another and exist across various channels in multiple iterations. There are simple, linear ones and stories with dizzying complexity and both types keep bringing interested audiences back for more.
Storytelling works because people have the innate desire to learn about certain developments that might be relevant to them. As humans we’re on a constant quest for knowledge and stories help us satisfy the urge to learn and be entertained. The best stories allow their audiences to immerse themselves completely, focusing solely on the story’s universe.
Over time, people have learned that one story can be molded and transformed across a bunch of different platforms. Each storytelling format has its pros and cons, and great storytellers have learned how to maximize every platform’s strengths to benefit their cause.
Storytelling also provides an alternate reality, especially if it’s fiction. Meanwhile, nonfiction stories, particularly the successful ones, are read because they motivate and inspire. People buy into stories because of our inclination to make sense of everything.
We use stories to build connections between related concepts through what we’ve learned and experienced, which in essence means engaging our audiences in a way that’s both surprising and familiar to them.
Why Storytelling Is Powerful
Storytelling is a powerful tool for marketing, but let’s take a look at why it works from a psychological standpoint:
Form of Communication
Putting types and platforms aside, storytelling shares information. The main purpose of storytelling is to share plots and narratives that hold deeper meaning.
From history to mystery, it’s all part of communicating something important. Storytelling connects people because of the common ground it builds for all of the people that interact with the story.
Collaboration and Connection
Storytelling births in its audience an understanding of other backgrounds (social or cultural) and deep emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger, and joy. The act of reading or listening to a story creates an experience, which can affect how people think, especially when making decisions.
Because of the massive effect of storytelling, it’s no surprise that it has become a powerful tool in the world of B2B marketing. Marketers can communicate their product or service better through storytelling. At the same time, it bypasses the concept (or even the need) of a hard sell. People are drawn in by story without being explicitly aware that a product or service is being sold to them.
Listen here why I think B2B Storytelling is so important for B2B Marketers:
youtube
B2B marketers found subtlety in storytelling. The modern marketing industry has shifted to appeal to emotions instead of bombarding their audiences with self-promotional tactics. Businesses are now investing in creating brand stories about their product or service. Instead of hard selling, they attract prospects through the value of a story.
Enhances Imagination
Storytelling taps different sections of the brain to implant thoughts and feelings about concepts, making them more apparent and memorable. Brands can take advantage of this by transforming their sales process into an attractive visual experience.
Genuine emotions, presence, and behavioral responses are all the result of good storytelling. Rather than being spectators of a narrative, storytelling gives its audience the chance to become participants, interpreting the true meaning of the story on their own terms.
Order and Thinking
Good storytelling follows a specific structure: beginning → middle → end, which is shaped like an arc because a good story must not begin nor end haphazardly. This makes the audience think in a very specific pattern, which, in turn, makes the story easier to consume.
It’s natural for people to make sense of something by relating it to the different aspects of their lives. Also, by making space in their thoughts for that something, it becomes easier to remember and absorb the message.
Storytelling doesn’t just explicitly tell a story. It’s made to create waves of conversation and interpretation. It extends itself to be an experience to whoever the consumer may be.
Importance of B2B Storytelling
In reality, successful B2B content marketing strategies are not just about logic, technical processes, and facts. The world has come to realize that it’s about connecting with people on an emotional/psychological level.
According to research by Google in partnership with Motista and CEB, 50% of B2B buyers are more likely to buy if they can connect emotionally with your brand. It starts with your business’ goals, objectives, mission, and vision. If a B2B buyer sees that there’s a common ground, they identify with your brand, which creates a sense of trust.
Based on the same study, 71% of B2B buyers purchase when they see personal value in your business. Along with that, 68.8% of the B2B buyers surveyed are even willing to pay a higher price to do business with a brand they believe in.
But what does “personal value” mean in B2B marketing?
It’s the professional, social, and emotional benefits you experience in addition to the actual product.
Simply put, emotions elevate customer satisfaction and customer experience. Based on a study by The Good Relations Group, the honesty of the vendor plays a big part at 93%. Moreover, personal recommendations also drive purchase action at 91%.
Although these are not explicit emotions such as happiness or sadness, they are deeply rooted emotions that are powerful enough to influence decision making. At the end of the day, purchasing is a risk. You need to trust the seller that he/she is not taking advantage of you.
Further, positive emotions increase a customer’s loyalty, improving the chances of them becoming brand advocates. In an age where customer loyalty is everything, businesses should take every chance they get.
Emotions and the Customer in B2B Storytelling
“Your customers feel before they think.” – Dan Hill
Consider the scale of your customer’s responsibility. For B2B purchases, it’s likely that the decision will affect not just them, but the entire business, so more effort goes into the decision-making process. This means that B2B buyers require a higher perceived value than their B2C counterparts.
So as a B2B seller, you should consider this. Tap the emotions that are of value to them. Will this decision improve their business’ efficiency? Luckily, you can figure out what motivates your target market simply by listening to them.
There are various channels you can use to research your audiences such as social media, surveys, phone calls, or even a simple email questionnaire. By doing this, you can get actionable insights from the source. No one knows your customers better than they know themselves.
An essential key to a successful B2B storytelling is effective listening. Don’t ignore what your customers are saying. Rather, listen to them before and after implementation. Go back to the drawing board every after evaluation and lay out possible points of improvement.
Storytelling humanizes your business. Surely, you can publish dozens of studies and whitepapers about how awesome your product or service is, but if there’s a disconnect emotionally, you’re going to turn off your customers.
The traditional view of B2B marketing aims to keep things professional in a very sterile manner. If you’re able to inject some personality and emotion into your communications, you’ll give your brand a much better chance of standing out from the clutter.
Components of B2B Storytelling
So, how do you seamlessly incorporate storytelling into your B2B marketing strategies? Here are three essential factors that every story needs:
Conflict
You can formulate the conflict by understanding your customer based on the customer journey you’ve created.
Identify their pain points and use it as inspiration for a compelling B2B story. Present their problems and issues in a creative and attention-grabbing manner. Make sure that you don’t offend them in the process.
Take your time in your research because a misrepresentation of your customer’s conflict can spell disaster for your B2B storytelling effort. Furthermore, knowing their real problems and issues will give you a solid understanding of what makes them tick.
Climax
After establishing your customer’s conflict, it’s time to match it with the solution that your product or service provides. It’s always a spectacular moment when you address your customer’s problems. This is where your business becomes the hero in the story by resolving the story’s conflict.
Don’t be afraid to involve feelings in B2B storytelling. Although there’s quite a stern ambiance in the B2B industry when compared to B2C, storytelling simply doesn’t work without emotional resonance.
Resolution
As usual, you must have the perfect curtain call to the story. Describe how your customer’s life changed after using your product or service. Feel free to go into detail. Don’t settle for generic satisfaction. If possible, show numbers to quantify the value of the benefit.
These three major points create a far more immersive customer experience. It elevates the typical process of engaging with your brand to a memorable and enriching one.
B2B Storytelling Success
The following companies are great B2B Storytelling examples and how stories can help your brand:
LinkedIn
LinkedIn, known as the job hosting website, used the power of storytelling in their “Picture Yourself” campaign to create inspiring stories about some of their members.
The idea was to leverage the knowledge and experience of successful business professionals to create a valuable story for LinkedIn’s audience to learn from. What they managed to do was build a portal of quality business insights that increased the trust and relevance of the LinkedIn brand.
Cisco
Humor goes a long way. You might not imagine that a huge tech company would choose humor as their B2B storytelling core concept. Humor can have a huge impact because of the emotion it elicits from the customer.
But keep in mind that despite the lighthearted tone, they always stay true to principles of storytelling, from conflict, to climax, to resolution.
Kickstarter
Their B2B storytelling skills lie in all the success stories of the businesses they’ve helped to create. In other words, the users themselves build the storytelling of Kickstarter. This looks like a simple core, but it’s very effective because the people see their dream businesses realized. “We help people tell their stories.”
Intel
Intel found the key to making technology more relatable. The tech giant has made technology more human than ever before.
With the help of Toshiba, they took B2B storytelling to the next level by creating a series of short films called “The Beauty Inside.” The interactive nature of the film gives the audience a chance to play the lead role in the story, making it easy to understand why it’s gotten more than 70 million views since its release.
Zendesk
If you think that B2B storytelling only allows success for real stories, then think again. Zendesk took a different path when they created this fake band named “Zendesk Alternative,” which is a semi-grungy band, and accompanied this faux-band with a website of their own.
It caught people’s attention, to say the least, and Zendesk looked like a genius by going out of the box and being completely unexpected.
Microsoft
While other companies look for stories outside their company, Microsoft looked inside, and it worked. In 2010, they hired a guy that’s the master of storytelling as the Chief Storyteller. They completely revamped their content marketing strategy and published new content through different social media channels in a series titled “Microsoft Stories.”
By projecting an excellent company culture and employee engagement, other businesses found Microsoft to be the company they can trust and do business with. This worked so well that they turned their media center into a portal called Microsoft Story Labs.
Conclusion
B2B storytelling makes a brand real to its audience. Leading B2B CMOs are using stories to reach and engage new audiences.
A good story lets customers know your brand and what it stands for. It also bridges the gap between your business and your consumers. In addition, storytelling adds an extra layer to your customer care by recognizing customer’s stories and using them to inspire more people.
From what used to be a mushy marketing strategy, B2B storytelling has transformed into a leading tactic in Content Marketing. So, get out there and start connecting with your audience on an emotional level.
The post The Importance of B2B Storytelling appeared first on PureB2B.
The post The Importance of B2B Storytelling appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.
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What Performs Plastic Treatment Molding Mean As Well As What Should I Know?
What Performs Plastic Treatment Molding Mean As Well As What Should I Know?
Among the best frequently used plastic creation process in the business is actually the plastic injection moulding. The wide assortment of uses as well as the range of moulding particularly in making both non-reusable buyer plastics and also large reengineering plastic components have truly endeared it to several. Injection Moulding Machine
Of What Uses Are The Plastic Injection Moulding?
The plastic injection process is usually utilized in the creation of several thermoplastics like polycarbonate, nylon material, polystyrene etc. This process doesn't only offer plastic producers the flexibility to make numerous sorts of small and also industrial plastics but the average body weight of the plastic item is actually often lightweight when matched up to the plastic creation procedure that was utilize some years back. It is not astonishing that there are lots of substantial shaped as well as wonderfully made plastic items out there today, because of the plastic moulding production procedure.
Making different sorts of plastics with the plastic injection machines are actually pretty very easy because it typically begins through having actually the product introduced to the treatment maker by means of a receptacle. The plastic moulding maker includes returning the compliment screws that are normally steered due to the power motor as well as a heated gun barrel. This electric motor or even the hydraulic often transports the smelted polymer via some prepared gateways or even funnels as well as down payments them into a temperature regulated crack mould.
During the course of the shot period of the plastic development, the returning the compliment screw generally serves as the ram as well as also thaws the plastic. Relying on the needed measurements, molds etc of the finished plastic product, the melted or plasticized polymer are actually often injected into the mould. But this takes area after the extra home heating that is typically produced by train action of the screw on the polymer.
In the plastic injection artistic method, quite high tension is commonly used relying on the kind of plastic material that is being actually processed and also the variety of output that is actually being generated.
A lot of plastic moulding equipments are crafted from a mixture of steal and blends of aluminum. This is actually because, take could be hardened and layered when the requirement develops as well as the metals of aluminum can facilitate the palm sprucing up speeds and improve cutting. These mixtures had made it possible for the large manufacturing of countless layouts and also variations of plastic items.
The significance as well as total need of the plastic injection moulding makers can easily not end highlighted since in addition to making it possible for the enormous development of different non reusable palatable plastic items, it has been noted that folks in the aerospace and also even self defense business are actually taking advantage of the fantastic plastic shot processes.
Plastics Injection Molding
When it comes to purchasing equipment for plastics injection creating, there are actually several factors to look at prior to placing a purchase. For occasion, you have to first know exactly what it is actually that the plastics shot molding tools is visiting possess to essentially generate. If you do not presently possess one, a major issue of yours when it involves treatment tools is actually to locate a mold and mildew maker. Search for a professional who has built several molds in their time, and also provide the specs of the product or even products you prefer the plastics shot equipments to create.
The moment you possess a respectable mold producer to aid actually form what it is actually that your provider will be actually helping make, on to the next action of finding injection equipment. This following step includes figuring out the number of units every day the treatment equipment will definitely need to generate, along with measuring how a lot room you are actually going to need to have for a plastic injection machine of enough size. Be certain to think about the fact that your employees are actually mosting likely to have to function on and around your plastics treatment molding equipment, therefore allow sufficient space around the equipment for them to easily move and also perform their work along with achievable. Safety initially!
Next, look for a plastic device that is actually both dependable and inexpensive. You might be actually capable to find a deal on a plastic creating equipment that has been actually lightly utilized, or you may be actually able to haggle down the price of a latest version coming from a vendor straight. Next, have a look about at which sort of plastic grains you will require to embed your plastics shot molding equipment of choice once it shows up. Be gotten ready for this crucial brand new tool!
Plastic Injection Molding
You may not know it, yet just about every thing around you was produced via plastic injection molding - the mouse you are making use of to search, compartments you make use of to store leftover food, etc
. You find, plastic injection molding is actually the most significant method in the manufacturing of plastic components. It is carried out forcibly melted plastic in to a mold and mildew dental caries till it cools and makes up a certain plastic design. Plastic treatment molding is really valuable when the plastic parts that require to become produced are actually as well complex or costly to perform through maker. Along with plastic injection molding, lots of parts may be made concurrently (using the very same mold and mildew).
Plastic molding producers utilize numerous unique creating strategies to create plastic parts. These procedures include thermoplastic and thermoset treatment creating, transmitting to resin, strike creating, gyratory creating, compression creating, thermoforming, architectural froth molding and also numerous others.
Some plastic shot creating business take your principle from first model via development, delivery and also completing. They possess a skilled team of experienced engineers, designers as well as toolmakers who function along with customers coming from developing the idea to building the model and to the manufacturing of the real custom-made mold and mildew. Along with using stylish pc helped style and also innovation and the most up-to-date equipment, they can easily provide clients along with an actually remarkable mold and mildew and also ensure every item's excellence.
It's a really good concept to choose companies that are actually swiftly, flexible and also customer-driven, specifically if you need to have big amounts and also fast turn-around or focused tiny quantity jogs. Pick business that possess state-of-the-art plastic treatment molding resources and equipments that contrast in weight coming from seventy 5 to five hundred heaps. View if they have full incrustation thermoplastic as well as thermoset functionalities with pc helped manufacturing, knowledgeable device drivers as well as excellent quality control group. This promises that their outcome looks at high quality injection molding, and also that it stands up the test of opportunity.
Tips to Select a Plastic Injection Molding Machine
Choosing the proper plastic shot casting machine is just one of one of the most essential requirements for creating dependable machining components frequently as well as profitably. The ideal machine will certainly aid in keeping rates low and transform you much more efficient. This are going to let you offer even more parts, make more funds and also all at once create a status as a dependable firm.
Even a lot better, you'll have the safety and security of long-term consumers. The other crucial criterion in making the efficient as well as premium parts is picking the high quality mold design.
Just How Can You Keep Your Costs Low?
Decrease rejects cost (set a target
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Voices in AI – Episode 79: A Conversation with Naveen Rao
Today's leading minds talk AI with host Byron Reese
.voice-in-ai-byline-embed { font-size: 1.4rem; background: url(https://voicesinai.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/cropped-voices-background.jpg) black; background-position: center; background-size: cover; color: white; padding: 1rem 1.5rem; font-weight: 200; text-transform: uppercase; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; } .voice-in-ai-byline-embed span { color: #FF6B00; }
About this Episode
Episode 79 of Voices in AI features host Byron Reese and Naveen Rao discussing intelligence, the mind, consciousness, AI, and what the day to day looks like at Intel. Byron and Naveen also delve into the implications of an AI future.
Visit www.VoicesinAI.com to listen to this one-hour podcast or read the full transcript.
Transcript Exerpt
Byron Reese: This is Voices in AI brought to you by GigaOm, and I’m Byron Reese. Today I’m excited that our guest is Naveen Rao. He is the Corporate VP and General Manager of Artificial Intelligence Products Group at Intel. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Duke and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Brown University. Welcome to the show, Naveen.
Naveen Rao: Thank you. Glad to be here.
You’re going to give me a great answer to my standard opening question, which is: What is intelligence?
That is a great question. It really doesn’t have an agreed-upon answer. My version of this is about potential and capability. What I see as an intelligent system is a system that is capable of decomposing structure within data. By my definition, I would call a newborn human baby intelligent, because the potential is there, but the system is not yet trained with real experience. I think that’s different than other definitions, where we talk about the phenomenology of intelligence, where you can categorize things, and all of this. I think that’s where the outcropping of having actually learned the inherent structure of the world.
So, in what sense by that definition is artificial intelligence actually artificial? Is it artificial because we built it, or is it artificial because it’s not real intelligence? It’s like artificial turf; it just looks like intelligence.
No. I think it’s artificial because we built it. That’s all. There’s nothing artificial about it. The term intelligence doesn’t have to be on biological mush, it can be implemented on any kind of substrate. In fact, there’s even research on how slime mold, actually…
Right. It can work mazes…
… can solve computational problems, Yeah.
How does it do that, by the way? That’s really a pretty staggering thing.
There’s a concept that we call gradients. Gradients are just how information gets more crystalized. If I feel like I’m going to learn something by going one direction, that direction is the gradient. It’s sort of a pointer in the way I should go. That can exist in the chemical world as well, and things like slime mold actually use chemical gradients that translate into information processing and actually learn dynamics of a system. Our neurons do that. Deep neural networks do that in a computer system. They’re all based on something similar at one level.
So, let’s talk about the nematode worm for a minute.
Okay.
You’ve got this worm, the most successful creature on the planet. Seventy percent of all animals are nematode worms. He’s got 302 neurons and exhibits certain kinds of complex behavior. There have been a bunch of people in the OpenWorm Project, who spent 20 years trying to model those 302 neurons in a computer, just to get it to duplicate what the nematode does. Even among them, they say: “We’re not even sure if this is possible.” So, why are we having such a hard time with such a simple thing as a nematode worm?
Well, I think this is a bit of a fallacy of reductive thinking here, that, “Hey, if I can understand the 302 neurons, then I can understand the 86 billion neurons in the human brain.” I think that fallacy falls apart because there are different emergent properties that happen when we go from one size system to another. It’s like running a company of 50 people is not the same as running a company of 50,000. It’s very different.
But, to jump in there… my question wasn’t, “Why doesn’t the nematode worm tell us something about human intelligence?” My question was simply, “Why don’t we understand how a nematode worm works?”
Right. I was going to get to that. I think there are a few reasons for that. One is, interaction of any complex system – hundreds of elements – is extremely complicated. There’s a concept in physics called the three-body problem, where if I have two pool balls on a pool table, I can actually 100 percent predict where the balls will end up if I know the initial state and I know how much energy I’m injecting when I hit one of the balls in one direction with a certain force. If you make that three, I cannot do that in a closed form system. I have to simulate steps along the way. That is called a three-body problem, and it’s computationally intractable to compute that. So, you can imagine when it gets to 302, it gets even more difficult.
And what we see in big systems like in mammalian brains, where we have billions of neurons, and 300 neurons, is that you actually have pockets of closely interacting pieces in a big brain that interact at a higher level. That’s what I was getting at when I talked about these emergent properties. So, you still have that 302-body problem, if you will, in a big brain as you do in a small brain. That complexity hasn’t gone away, even though it seemingly is a much simpler system The interaction between 302 different things, even when you know precisely how each one of them is connected, is just a very complex matter. If you try to model all the interactions and you’re off by just a little bit on any one of those things, the entire system may not work. That’s why we don’t understand it, because you can’t characterize every piece of this, like every synapse… you can’t mathematically characterize it. And if you don’t get it perfect, you won’t get a system that functions properly.
So, do you say that suggesting by extension that the Human Brain Project in Europe, which really is… You’re laughing and nodding. What’s your take on that?
I am not a fan of the Human Brain Project for this exact reason. The complexity of the system is just incredibly high, and if you’re off by one tiny parameter, by a tiny little amount, it’s sort of like the butterfly effect. It can have huge consequences on the operation of the system, and you really haven’t learned anything. All you’ve learned how to do is model some microdynamics of a system. You haven’t really gotten any true understanding of how the system really works.
You know, I had a guest on the show, Nova Spivack, who said that a single neuron may turn out to be as complicated as a supercomputer, and it may even operate down at the Planck level. It’s an incredibly complex thing.
Yeah.
Is that possible?
It is a physical system – a physical device. One could argue the same thing about a single transistor as well. We engineer these things to act within certain bounds… and I believe the brain actually takes advantage of that as well. So, a neuron… to completely, accurately describe everything a neuron is doing, you’re absolutely right. It could take a supercomputer to do so, but we don’t necessarily need to abstract a supercomputer’s worth of value from each neuron. I think that’s a fallacy.
There are lots of nonlinear effects and all this kind of crazy stuff that are happening that really aren’t useful to the overall function of the brain. Just like an individual neuron can do very complicated things, when we put a whole bunch of [transistors] together to build a processor, we’re exploiting one piece of the way that transistor behaves to make that processor work. We’re not exploiting everything in the realm of possibility that the transistor can do.
We’re going to get to artificial intelligence in a minute. It’s always great to have a neuroscientist on the show. So, we have these brains, and you said they exhibit emergent properties. Emergence is of course the phenomenon where the whole of something takes on characteristics that none of the components have. And it’s often thought of in two variants. One is weak emergence, where once you see the emergent behavior, with enough study you can kind of reverse engineer… “Ah, I see why that happened.” And one is a much more controversial idea of strong emergence that may not be discernible. The emergent property may not be derivable from the component. Do you think human intelligence is a weak emergent property, or do you believe in strong emergence?
I do in some ways believe in strong emergence. Let me give you the subtlety of that. I don’t necessarily think it can be analytically solved because the system is so complex. What I do believe is that you can characterize the system within certain bounds. It’s much like how a human may solve a problem like playing chess. We don’t actually pre-compute every possibility. We don’t do that sort of a brute force kind of thing. But we do come up with heuristics that are accurate most of the time. And I think the same thing is true with the bounds of a very complex system like the brain. We can come up with bounds of these emergent properties that are accurate 95 percent of time, but we won’t be accurate 100 percent of the time. It’s not going to be as beautiful as some of the physics we have that can describe the world. In fact, even physics might fall into this category as well. So, I guess the short answer to your question is: I do believe in strong emergence that will never actually 100 percent describe…
But, do you think fundamentally intelligence could, given an infinitely large computer, be understood in a reductionist format? Or is there some break in cause and effect along the way, where it would be literally impossible. Are you saying it’s practically impossible or literally impossible?
…To understand the whole system top to bottom, from the emerging…?
Well, to start with, this is a neuron.
Yeah.
And it does this, and you put 86 billion together and voilà, you have Naveen Rao.
I think it’s literally impossible.
Okay, I’ll go with that. That’s interesting. Why is it literally impossible?
Because the complexity is just too high, and the amount of energy and effort required to get to that level of understanding is many orders of magnitude more complicated than what you’re trying to understand.
So now, let’s talk about the mind for a minute. We talked about the brain, which is physics. To use a definition that most people I think wouldn’t have trouble with, I’m going to call the mind all the capabilities of the brain that seem a little beyond what three pounds of goo should be able to do… like creativity and a sense of humor. Your liver presumably doesn’t have a sense of humor, but your brain does. So where do you think the mind comes from? Or are you going to just say it’s an emergent property?
I do kind of say it’s an emergent property, but it’s not just an emergent property. It’s an emergent property that is actually the coordination of the physics of our brain – the way the brain itself works – and the environment. I don’t believe that a mind exists without the world. You know, a newborn baby, I called intelligent because it has the potential to decompose the world and find meaningful structure within it in which it can act. But if it doesn’t actually do that, it doesn’t have a mind. You can see that… if you had kids yourself. I actually had a newborn while I was studying neuroscience, and it was actually quite interesting to see. I don’t think a newborn baby is really quite sentient yet. That sort of emerges over time as the system interacts with the real world. So, I think the mind is an emergent property of brain plus environments interacting.
Listen to this one-hour episode or read the full transcript at www.VoicesinAI.com
Voices in AI
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Byron explores issues around artificial intelligence and conscious computers in his new book The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity.
from Gigaom https://gigaom.com/2019/02/07/voices-in-ai-episode-79-a-conversation-with-naveen-rao/
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Is Rapid Prototyping the Same as 3D Printing?
Is Rapid Prototyping the Same as 3D Printing?
Have you ever heard the terms "rapid prototyping service" and "3D printing service" used interchangeably? Are they really the same thing,
or is there a distinction between the two? Let's delve into this topic and uncover the relationship between rapid prototyping and 3D printing.
Rapid prototyping and 3D printing are closely related, but they are not exactly synonymous. Both processes involve
the creation of physical models or prototypes using additive manufacturing techniques, but there are subtle differences in their scope and application.
Rapid prototyping refers to the broader concept of quickly fabricating prototypes or models to test and validate a design.
It encompasses various techniques and technologies, including 3D printing, CNC machining, injection molding, and more.
The primary goal of rapid prototyping is to accelerate the product development cycle by allowing designers and engineers to iterate and refine their designs in a timely manner.
On the other hand, 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, specifically refers to
the process of creating three-dimensional objects by adding material layer by layer.
It is a subset of rapid prototyping and is one of the most widely recognized and utilized methods within this domain.
3D printing has gained significant popularity due to its accessibility, versatility, and the ability to produce complex geometries.
In a nutshell, 3D printing is a specific technique employed within the broader framework of rapid prototyping.
While all 3D printing is a form of rapid prototyping, not all rapid prototyping involves 3D printing.
Now that we've established the distinction between rapid prototyping and 3D printing, let's explore some related questions to gain further clarity.
How does 3D printing fit into the rapid prototyping process?
3D printing plays a crucial role in the rapid prototyping process. Its ability to quickly transform digital designs
into physical objects makes it an invaluable tool for designers and engineers. By utilizing 3D printing,
they can rapidly produce functional prototypes and evaluate the design's form, fit, and function.
This allows for faster iterations, reduced costs, and accelerated product development timelines.
Are there other rapid prototyping methods besides 3D printing?
Absolutely! While 3D printing is a popular and widely used method within rapid prototyping,
it is not the only technique available. Other methods include CNC machining, which involves cutting
and shaping materials using computer-controlled machines, and injection molding,
a process used to create parts by injecting molten material into a mold. Each method offers its own advantages
and is chosen based on factors such as the desired material, complexity of the design, and production volume.
How has 3D printing influenced the field of rapid prototyping?
The advent of 3D printing has revolutionized the field of rapid prototyping. Its accessibility,
affordability, and ease of use have democratized the prototyping process, enabling small businesses,
individuals, and even hobbyists to bring their ideas to life. The ability to create complex geometries
and intricate designs with relative ease has opened up new possibilities for innovation across various industries,
ranging from aerospace and automotive to healthcare and consumer goods.
Conclusion
While rapid prototyping and 3D printing share a close relationship, they are not interchangeable terms.
Rapid prototyping is a broader concept that encompasses various techniques, with 3D printing being a specific method within that framework.
3D printing has significantly contributed to the advancement of rapid prototyping, offering unparalleled speed, customization,
and complexity in the creation of physical prototypes.
To learn more about rapid prototyping and its various techniques, you can visit this resource.
Embrace the power of rapid prototyping and explore the endless possibilities of turning ideas into reality through the convergence of technology and innovation.
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Voices in AI – Episode 79: A Conversation with Naveen Rao
Today's leading minds talk AI with host Byron Reese
.voice-in-ai-byline-embed { font-size: 1.4rem; background: url(https://voicesinai.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/cropped-voices-background.jpg) black; background-position: center; background-size: cover; color: white; padding: 1rem 1.5rem; font-weight: 200; text-transform: uppercase; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; } .voice-in-ai-byline-embed span { color: #FF6B00; }
About this Episode
Episode 79 of Voices in AI features host Byron Reese and Naveen Rao discussing intelligence, the mind, consciousness, AI, and what the day to day looks like at Intel. Byron and Naveen also delve into the implications of an AI future.
Visit www.VoicesinAI.com to listen to this one-hour podcast or read the full transcript.
Transcript Exerpt
Byron Reese: This is Voices in AI brought to you by GigaOm, and I’m Byron Reese. Today I’m excited that our guest is Naveen Rao. He is the Corporate VP and General Manager of Artificial Intelligence Products Group at Intel. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Duke and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Brown University. Welcome to the show, Naveen.
Naveen Rao: Thank you. Glad to be here.
You’re going to give me a great answer to my standard opening question, which is: What is intelligence?
That is a great question. It really doesn’t have an agreed-upon answer. My version of this is about potential and capability. What I see as an intelligent system is a system that is capable of decomposing structure within data. By my definition, I would call a newborn human baby intelligent, because the potential is there, but the system is not yet trained with real experience. I think that’s different than other definitions, where we talk about the phenomenology of intelligence, where you can categorize things, and all of this. I think that’s where the outcropping of having actually learned the inherent structure of the world.
So, in what sense by that definition is artificial intelligence actually artificial? Is it artificial because we built it, or is it artificial because it’s not real intelligence? It’s like artificial turf; it just looks like intelligence.
No. I think it’s artificial because we built it. That’s all. There’s nothing artificial about it. The term intelligence doesn’t have to be on biological mush, it can be implemented on any kind of substrate. In fact, there’s even research on how slime mold, actually…
Right. It can work mazes…
… can solve computational problems, Yeah.
How does it do that, by the way? That’s really a pretty staggering thing.
There’s a concept that we call gradients. Gradients are just how information gets more crystalized. If I feel like I’m going to learn something by going one direction, that direction is the gradient. It’s sort of a pointer in the way I should go. That can exist in the chemical world as well, and things like slime mold actually use chemical gradients that translate into information processing and actually learn dynamics of a system. Our neurons do that. Deep neural networks do that in a computer system. They’re all based on something similar at one level.
So, let’s talk about the nematode worm for a minute.
Okay.
You’ve got this worm, the most successful creature on the planet. Seventy percent of all animals are nematode worms. He’s got 302 neurons and exhibits certain kinds of complex behavior. There have been a bunch of people in the OpenWorm Project, who spent 20 years trying to model those 302 neurons in a computer, just to get it to duplicate what the nematode does. Even among them, they say: “We’re not even sure if this is possible.” So, why are we having such a hard time with such a simple thing as a nematode worm?
Well, I think this is a bit of a fallacy of reductive thinking here, that, “Hey, if I can understand the 302 neurons, then I can understand the 86 billion neurons in the human brain.” I think that fallacy falls apart because there are different emergent properties that happen when we go from one size system to another. It’s like running a company of 50 people is not the same as running a company of 50,000. It’s very different.
But, to jump in there… my question wasn’t, “Why doesn’t the nematode worm tell us something about human intelligence?” My question was simply, “Why don’t we understand how a nematode worm works?”
Right. I was going to get to that. I think there are a few reasons for that. One is, interaction of any complex system – hundreds of elements – is extremely complicated. There’s a concept in physics called the three-body problem, where if I have two pool balls on a pool table, I can actually 100 percent predict where the balls will end up if I know the initial state and I know how much energy I’m injecting when I hit one of the balls in one direction with a certain force. If you make that three, I cannot do that in a closed form system. I have to simulate steps along the way. That is called a three-body problem, and it’s computationally intractable to compute that. So, you can imagine when it gets to 302, it gets even more difficult.
And what we see in big systems like in mammalian brains, where we have billions of neurons, and 300 neurons, is that you actually have pockets of closely interacting pieces in a big brain that interact at a higher level. That’s what I was getting at when I talked about these emergent properties. So, you still have that 302-body problem, if you will, in a big brain as you do in a small brain. That complexity hasn’t gone away, even though it seemingly is a much simpler system The interaction between 302 different things, even when you know precisely how each one of them is connected, is just a very complex matter. If you try to model all the interactions and you’re off by just a little bit on any one of those things, the entire system may not work. That’s why we don’t understand it, because you can’t characterize every piece of this, like every synapse… you can’t mathematically characterize it. And if you don’t get it perfect, you won’t get a system that functions properly.
So, do you say that suggesting by extension that the Human Brain Project in Europe, which really is… You’re laughing and nodding. What’s your take on that?
I am not a fan of the Human Brain Project for this exact reason. The complexity of the system is just incredibly high, and if you’re off by one tiny parameter, by a tiny little amount, it’s sort of like the butterfly effect. It can have huge consequences on the operation of the system, and you really haven’t learned anything. All you’ve learned how to do is model some microdynamics of a system. You haven’t really gotten any true understanding of how the system really works.
You know, I had a guest on the show, Nova Spivack, who said that a single neuron may turn out to be as complicated as a supercomputer, and it may even operate down at the Planck level. It’s an incredibly complex thing.
Yeah.
Is that possible?
It is a physical system – a physical device. One could argue the same thing about a single transistor as well. We engineer these things to act within certain bounds… and I believe the brain actually takes advantage of that as well. So, a neuron… to completely, accurately describe everything a neuron is doing, you’re absolutely right. It could take a supercomputer to do so, but we don’t necessarily need to abstract a supercomputer’s worth of value from each neuron. I think that’s a fallacy.
There are lots of nonlinear effects and all this kind of crazy stuff that are happening that really aren’t useful to the overall function of the brain. Just like an individual neuron can do very complicated things, when we put a whole bunch of [transistors] together to build a processor, we’re exploiting one piece of the way that transistor behaves to make that processor work. We’re not exploiting everything in the realm of possibility that the transistor can do.
We’re going to get to artificial intelligence in a minute. It’s always great to have a neuroscientist on the show. So, we have these brains, and you said they exhibit emergent properties. Emergence is of course the phenomenon where the whole of something takes on characteristics that none of the components have. And it’s often thought of in two variants. One is weak emergence, where once you see the emergent behavior, with enough study you can kind of reverse engineer… “Ah, I see why that happened.” And one is a much more controversial idea of strong emergence that may not be discernible. The emergent property may not be derivable from the component. Do you think human intelligence is a weak emergent property, or do you believe in strong emergence?
I do in some ways believe in strong emergence. Let me give you the subtlety of that. I don’t necessarily think it can be analytically solved because the system is so complex. What I do believe is that you can characterize the system within certain bounds. It’s much like how a human may solve a problem like playing chess. We don’t actually pre-compute every possibility. We don’t do that sort of a brute force kind of thing. But we do come up with heuristics that are accurate most of the time. And I think the same thing is true with the bounds of a very complex system like the brain. We can come up with bounds of these emergent properties that are accurate 95 percent of time, but we won’t be accurate 100 percent of the time. It’s not going to be as beautiful as some of the physics we have that can describe the world. In fact, even physics might fall into this category as well. So, I guess the short answer to your question is: I do believe in strong emergence that will never actually 100 percent describe…
But, do you think fundamentally intelligence could, given an infinitely large computer, be understood in a reductionist format? Or is there some break in cause and effect along the way, where it would be literally impossible. Are you saying it’s practically impossible or literally impossible?
…To understand the whole system top to bottom, from the emerging…?
Well, to start with, this is a neuron.
Yeah.
And it does this, and you put 86 billion together and voilà, you have Naveen Rao.
I think it’s literally impossible.
Okay, I’ll go with that. That’s interesting. Why is it literally impossible?
Because the complexity is just too high, and the amount of energy and effort required to get to that level of understanding is many orders of magnitude more complicated than what you’re trying to understand.
So now, let’s talk about the mind for a minute. We talked about the brain, which is physics. To use a definition that most people I think wouldn’t have trouble with, I’m going to call the mind all the capabilities of the brain that seem a little beyond what three pounds of goo should be able to do… like creativity and a sense of humor. Your liver presumably doesn’t have a sense of humor, but your brain does. So where do you think the mind comes from? Or are you going to just say it’s an emergent property?
I do kind of say it’s an emergent property, but it’s not just an emergent property. It’s an emergent property that is actually the coordination of the physics of our brain – the way the brain itself works – and the environment. I don’t believe that a mind exists without the world. You know, a newborn baby, I called intelligent because it has the potential to decompose the world and find meaningful structure within it in which it can act. But if it doesn’t actually do that, it doesn’t have a mind. You can see that… if you had kids yourself. I actually had a newborn while I was studying neuroscience, and it was actually quite interesting to see. I don’t think a newborn baby is really quite sentient yet. That sort of emerges over time as the system interacts with the real world. So, I think the mind is an emergent property of brain plus environments interacting.
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Byron explores issues around artificial intelligence and conscious computers in his new book The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity.
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The Koch Network’s Integrated Strategy for Social Transformation - U.S. NEWS
New Post has been published on https://citizentruth.org/the-koch-networks-integrated-strategy-for-social-transformation/
The Koch Network’s Integrated Strategy for Social Transformation
Perhaps the most important and least visible element of the Kochs’ integrated strategy is their influence within institutions of higher education.
(Open Secrets) In a media landscape that has come to feel dominated by nationalists and progressives, one could forgive conservatives and libertarians for feeling they lack a platform. But although economic libertarianism is not as fashionable as it was in 2010, its champions continue to promote its ideals with stunning scope and efficiency.
Enter the Koch brothers, political mega-donors best known for their web of politically active nonprofits and super PACs. In the heyday of its notoriety, the Koch network was associated with the wave of fiscally conservative politicians swept into Congress to oppose President Barack Obama. It was also tied to the Tea Party movement. Some go so far as to say the Koch network bankrolled the whole affair with the help from Rupert Murdoch, astroturfing a movement to counter Obama’s grassroots appeal. While it is reductive to chalk the entire Tea Party up to Koch money, there is some truth to the idea.
According to an article written by former president of the Charles Koch Foundation Rich Fink, growing a grassroots movements like the Tea Party is part of a three-tiered strategy aimed at bringing about “social transformation.”
“At the higher stages we have the investment in the intellectual raw materials, that is, the exploration and production of abstract concepts and theories,” Fink writes in the article originally published in Philanthropy Magazine. “These still come primarily (though not exclusively) from the research done by scholars at our universities … In the middle stages, ideas are applied to a relevant context and molded into needed solutions for real-world problems. This is the work of the think tanks and policy institutions… But while the think tanks excel at developing new policy and articulating its benefits, they are less able to implement change. Citizen activist or implementation groups are needed in the final stage to take the policy ideas from the think tanks and translate them into proposals that citizens can understand and act upon.”
“Citizen activist or implementation groups” are the tip of the spear in the integrated strategy the Koch network uses to inject their political philosophy into the discourse. And even more important are the friendly think tanks, media outlets and universities that espouse Koch-aligned ideas for the citizen groups to champion.
“In 2011, interest peaked in what they were doing politically,” said Samantha Parsons, a founding member of UnKoch My Campus in a phone interview with OpenSecrets. “But the Koch network is so big and so broad and there’s so many different organizations, universities, think-tanks and grassroots or astroturf organizations that oftentimes you don’t know whether an organization you might be paying attention to at the state level or the local level is indeed a part of the Koch network.”
Many groups that make up the middle part of the network’s integrated strategy, between academics and grassroots agitation, fall under the umbrella of the State Policy Network, a coalition of state-level think tanks. In tax documents, the SPN says it aims to “create a robust movement of leaders advancing free-market ideas in the states.” An SPN document from 2016 lists a more specific goal, to “defund and defang one of our freedom movement’s most powerful opponents, the government unions” and to “deal a major blow to the left’s ability to control government at the state and national levels.”
The names of many groups in the SPN make benign reference to the local cultures of their states of residence. Kentucky has the Bluegrass Institute For Public Policy Solutions, Michigan has the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and Ohio has the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy
The State Policy Network’s “associate” groups include the Charles Koch Institute, Americans for Prosperity Foundation, American Legislative Exchange Council, Federalist Society, FreedomWorks, Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, Reason Foundation and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Bridgett G. Wagner, Heritage Foundation’s vice president for policy promotion, is on the State Policy Network’s board of directors. Heritage Foundation has also received funding from the Claude R. Lambe Foundation, a Koch connected group.
Charles and David Koch co-founded the SPN associate Cato Institute with noted libertarian writer Edward Crane in the late 70s. They named the think tank after Cato’s Letters, an English essay-series written in the 18th Century espousing the virtues of individual liberty and limited government. A conflict between Crane and the brothers would result in two lawsuits (both of which were eventually abandoned) and both parties stepping back from Cato in 2012. Between Cato’s founding and the lawsuits, the Koch network gave more than $30 million to the think tank.
“Mr. Koch’s actions… represent an effort by him to transform Cato from an independent, nonpartisan research organization into a political entity that might better support his partisan agenda,” said Crane of Charles Koch’s efforts to exert greater control over Cato’s board of directors. “We view Mr. Koch’s actions as an attempt at a hostile takeover…”
Crane resigned as chief executive, and the Koch network’s influence on the board of directors was diluted. Neither of the brothers currently sit on Cato’s board.
At Reason Foundation, David Koch still sits on the board or trustees (alongside Drew Carey of “The Price is Right”). Reason Foundation is behind Reason.com, Reason Magazine, ReasonTV and other internet libertarian outlets. According to tax returns, since 2012 the Reason Foundation has received around $49.3 million in grants and contributions, roughly $11.6 million of that in the fiscal year ending in Sept. 2017. But according to Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason’s editor-in-chief, Reason does not stay afloat thanks to grants alone.
“We are lucky enough to have a large and diverse group of print subscribers, webathon donors, and supporters who help fund our work through the Reason Foundation,” Mangu-Ward said in an e-mail interview with OpenSecrets. “This somewhat unusual structure has protected us from the turmoil that other publications have faced when a single wealthy owner loses interest or when a support from advertisers dries up.”
Perhaps the most important and least visible element of the Kochs’ integrated strategy is their influence within institutions of higher education.
According to the Center for Public Integrity, Ohio State University accepted $100,000 from the Koch network in 2013, in part to pay for an economics department instructor. The instructor would teach roughly eight courses a year, and those courses would focus “on topics related to economic freedom and competitive markets, such as the history of thought, public finance, industrial organization, and micro and macroeconomic principles…”
At Texas Tech University, $109,000 in Koch money was used to fund the “Free Market Institute” and the “Institute for the Study of Western Civilization,” which according to its website believes “the activities of great men and women often drive history.”
A list of schools supported by the Charles Koch Foundation can be viewed on their website.
At no other college is the influence of Koch money more pervasive than at George Mason University. In 2014, two Koch foundations contributed $23.4 million to U.S. Colleges and Universities. The network gave to 216 universities that year, and George Mason University got $16.8 million of the total.
Samantha Parsons said she first became aware of Koch-network influence at GMU when she was a freshman. Parsons was in GMU’s Environmental Action Group, partially because of concerns related to mining and uranium in her home town of Hurt, Virginia. The group’s faculty advisor brought the Kochs’ involvement at GMU to Parsons’ attention. When she asked the university for more information they responded by saying that, since the gift agreements were accepted by the George Mason University Foundation, a private 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization which accepts funding on behalf of GMU, the contributions were not technically the jurisdiction of the public university. The foundation cited donor confidentiality and turned her away.
In response, Parsons joined with fellow students to found UnKoch My Campus, a group that scrutinizes contributions made by Koch network groups to universities. Parsons filed the open records request that revealed that the Koch network had influenced the curriculum and hiring and review processes for faculty members in GMU’s Mercatus Center.
The Mercatus Center was founded by Richard Fink as the Center for the Study of Market Processes, in 1977. Fink went on to serve as executive vice president of Koch Companies Public Sector and as president of the Charles Koch Foundation.
According to Parsons, a GMU professor who taught an environmental economics class around this time had a zero-tolerance policy for discussions about climate change. One of the textbooks used in this class was called Global Warming and Other Eco-Myths, published by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
UnKoch My Campus also brought to light that Koch-adjacent groups have influenced GMU’s law school. A group called the BH Fund, acting as a proxy for the Federalist Society, wielded influence on programs, faculty appointments and students, according to documents released by UnKoch. Leonard Leo, head of the Federalist Society, is also president of the BH Fund. The report from UnKoch alleges that the Federalist Society had “taken over” GMU’s law school and that the judicial law clerk program has been re-purposed to help place conservative clerks in judge’s chambers.
GMU’s president admitted the contributions were problematic and promised to review its policies for accepting contributions.
“When I was in high school and learning how to do research, I would have teachers say ‘this is an academic article, it comes from a scholarly journal. We can trust that source,’” said Parsons. “But if it comes from a think tank or something you need to include a sentence in that report that says ‘this think tank has a bias’ or something. And that has always stuck with me, this concept that we’re supposed to trust what comes out of the hallowed halls of academia. And what we’re seeing that donors like the Koch brothers attaching these strings that are influencing what’s being researched, that are influencing who’s being hired.”
American Encore, formerly the Koch-backed Center to Protect Patient Rights, cited studies from GMU’s Mercatus Center in a policy paper. Congressional budget bills have also cited Mercatus Center studies, according to the Center For Public Integrity.
In a statement, the Charles Koch Foundation said it was “committed to advancing a marketplace of ideas and supporting a ‘Republic of Science’ where scholarship is free, open and subject to rigorous and honest intellectual challenge.”
Compare that to Koch’s speech to the Institute of Humane Studies in 1974, when he said businesses should support “only those programs, departments or schools that ‘contribute in some way to our individual companies or to the general welfare of our free enterprise system…’ Educational programs are superior to political action, and support of talented free-market scholars is preferable to mass advertising.’”
The Koch network has even shown interest in the education of prisoners. A Koch foundation-funded program teaches inmates in Florida Koch-flavored civics lessons. The project is managed by a member of the State Policy Network-affiliated James Madison Institute. In the program, inmates read a book called The Five Thousand Year Leap by Cleon Skousen. The book suggests that the constitution is divinely inspired.
The Kochs will probably always be better known for their politically active nonprofits spending millions of dollars in elections than for their work with grassroots organizations, think tanks and universities. The former is more visible, and it is difficult to say exactly how effective the integrated strategy really is in changing minds and culture in the short term. Still, with Koch-friendly think tanks quietly operating throughout the country and Koch-money in the coffers of hundreds of universities, it may be that the network’s soft power is actually its greatest asset.
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Third Doctor Adventures Volume 4
Latest Review: Writer: Guy Adams, Marc Platt Director: Nicholas Briggs Featuring: Tim Treloar, Katy Manning, Rufus Hound, Mina Anwar, Joe Sims, Carolyn Pickles, Nicholas Briggs Big Finish Release (United Kingdom) Running Time: 5 hours Released by Big Finish Productions - March 2018 Order from Amazon UK Before we begin, a quick housekeeping query: is everyone sufficiently bucked up and ready for further old-school 1970s (or 1980s, depending on whom you ask) sci-fi escapades? Wonderful. Perhaps emboldened by the success of their Dalek revival in Volume 3, Big Finish isn’t skimping in the slightest on classic villains in their newest pair of Adventures for the Third Doctor. In fact, they’ve introduced not one but two returning antagonists into the fray for Volume 4 in the forms of the Meddling Monk and – for the first time ever in a Jon Pertwee-era tale, so better late than never – the Cybermen. Admittedly this reviewer took umbrage with how intent “The Conquest of Far” seemed with simply reliving Dalek glory days, rather than seeking to develop how we perceive Skaro’s finest in any notable way, last time around. Will Guy Adams and Marc Platt’s next efforts to immortalise the late Pertwee’s beloved Doctor – now revitalised via Tim Treloar’s loving aural homage – fall into the same traps, then, or can their connective thematic tissue surrounding the ever-complexifying concept of human nature elevate proceedings? “The Rise of the New Humans”: “Look, Bessie’s a lovely car Doctor, I mean a really lovely car, but have you ever thought about investing in a little roof rather than a flappy tarpaulin to keep you dry?” “Don’t you listen, old girl – she knows you’re beautiful really!” Had we ever told diehard fans of all things Doctor Who after watching the divisive “The Woman Who Lived” in 2015 that supporting star Rufus Hound would go on to resurrect a long-overlooked classic antagonist to tremendous acclaim, the best case scenario, most would have justifiably scoffed in our faces. Between his infrequent appearances in the Short Trips and Doom Coalition ranges along with the British comedian’s headline role in Volume 4’s opening tale, however, that’s all changed and the results could hardly feel more satisfying than in the case of “The Rise of the New Humans”. A whirlwind four-parter that’s by parts thought-provoking, hilarious – as if we’d expect anything less of Hound – and thrilling, “Rise” fits into the mold of the Third Doctor era perfectly, posing a fascinating metaphysical concept as human test subjects find themselves transformed into supernatural beings capable of withstanding nearly any affliction. Naturally, though, Doctor Who wouldn’t be Doctor Who without an audacious experiment gone wrong, and sure enough the side effects – not to mention the technology recklessly co-opted by the Monk to achieve his not-so-altruistic goal – quickly lead listeners and the major players alike to question the limits of science’s oft-perceived god complex. If this all sounds too grim and sombre an affair to warrant the Monk’s involvement, then rest assured that Hound alleviates any such concerns with unmistakable ease from the outset. It’s thanks to his sinister, almost sickly, charisma and brilliantly earnest haplessness in the face of just about any danger that Adams’ borderline gothic – certainly Frankenstein-esque – script never gets too bogged down in its contemplations on evolution and the increasing risks of intervention in this natural process for financial gain, with the Monk’s attempts to disguise his seemingly benevolent intentions so delightfully inept that the audience should barely mind sitting through the humour-laden first half before discovering his true ambitions. At the same time, though, Adams thankfully also realises the supreme value and drawing power that Tim Treloar and Katy Manning both hold in the eyes of the Adventures range’s fandom, peppering in a wealth of understated conversations between the pair which perfectly encapsulate their bubbly, at times teacher-student-style dynamic. Whether they’re arguing over Bessie’s temperamentality on a rain-swept road – a subtle homage to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, perhaps? – or the Doctor’s comforting Jo upon her poignant realisation that rumours of us only accessing 10% of our brain power may have been exaggerated, every exchange that the characters share could’ve been ripped straight out of a 1970s serial, with Treloar’s righteously confident and Manning’s sweetly innocent line deliveries both as completely pitch-perfect as ever. The only noteworthy misstep on the wright in question’s part, then, comes with Part 4. While by no means a deal-breaker, the final installment of “Rise” does succumb to an all-too-familiar virus plaguing myriad audio and TV Who adventures – hightailing it to the finish line and ditching any intriguing ideas laid along the way in the process. One can’t help but notice the superior running time afforded to the boxset’s second story – the individual episodes of which run for around 30-35 minutes each compared to this serial’s 20-25 – and wonder if Adams struggled to give ideas like humans struggling with their deadly mutations full due, hence the final 25 minutes descending into the usual catastrophic monster mash and retconning a hugely tantalising cliffhanger regarding Jo within moments of its occurrence. Maybe Adams simply needs to keep honing his stabs at the four-part format instead, but it’s food for thought in terms of whether he might better befit a five- or six-episode serial should he contribute another script for the recently-announced Volume 5. “The Tyrants of Logic”: “Doctor, what are they?” “Cybermen!” Reading the above lines of dialogue alone will, for many fans, surely prove a cathartic experience in and of itself. After all, despite coming into contact with Daleks, Silurians, Sea Devils, Sontarans, Ice Warriors and Autons over the course of his four-year tenure, not to mention the Master on a near-weekly basis, Jon Pertwee’s Doctor never earned himself the chance to battle arguably Doctor Who’s second most iconic monster, joining Paul McGann, John Hurt and Christopher Eccleston’s as the only such incarnations faced with this unspeakable on-screen plight. But, as Hurt’s War Doctor proclaimed in 2013’s similarly Cyber-lite 50th anniversary special “The Day of the Doctor”, no more. Setting down on an initially near-deserted human colony dubbed Burnt Salt, the now exile-free Time Lord and Jo soon discover that they’re far from alone; quite to the contrary, a nearby saloon houses a wild assortment of rogues and ex-soldiers, all of whom bear a secret inevitably doomed to surface as the Cybermen make their presence on Burnt Salt known with their destructive efforts to secure a vital hidden weapon. Prior to us proceeding any further, though, a word of warning – with its Cybermats, Cyber Wars fallout and attempted Time Lord-Cyber conversions, Marc Platt’s latest script represents a quintessential story for everyone’s favourite Mondas residents, for better and for worse. Unless this boxset somehow marks your first encounter with Who, many of the twists in “Logic” will likely seem rather familiar; from characters mistakenly willing to sacrifice their humanity to the robotic menaces escaping supposed extinction yet again, from the Doctor needing 10 minutes to alleviate his companion’s dismay at their latest foe’s near-human nature to Part 4’s predictable final duke-out, there’s nothing particularly fresh to speak of in what’s a fairly run-of-the-mill nostalgia tour. Nothing, that is, save for the continuing thematic strand surrounding what it truly means to call oneself a member of the human race. If “Rise” explores this existential concept through a metaphysical exploration of our species’ DNA being evolved to a supposed higher state, then “Tyrants” – as with many Cyber-tales, although to more emotional effect a la Spare Parts – does so by presenting members of our species on the brink of having every aspect of their personalities stripped away. Can we possibly still define someone as human when they’re clinging to any remains vestiges of their Id / ego / super-ego? Sure, it’s a line of inquiry also recently pursued by TV serials like “Asylum of the Daleks”, but without spoiling too much, Carolyn Pickles achieves wonders as her character Marian Shaeffer’s cold exterior peels back to reveal her heartbreaking motivations in this regard. Indeed, even if “Logic” doesn’t exactly break a great deal of new ground compared to a recent TV Cyber-outing like “World Enough and Time / The Doctor Falls”, it’s not for want of the central and supporting cast alike doing their utmost – with director Nicholas Briggs’ support and guidance, no doubt – to provide an entertaining 2-hours of pseudo-base-under-siege action. That Treloar and Manning’s insatiably endearing chemistry injects humour and charm at every turn likely goes without saying at this point, but look out too for Briggs’ finest turn yet as the ever-hauntingly impassive invaders standing in Burnt Salt’s doorway as well as a contrastingly vulnerable performance from Deli Segal’s Skippa, another innocent bystander caught in the crossfire of a seemingly unyielding, constantly destructive conflict. The Verdict: Above all, this stellar new boxset for Treloar’s Third Doctor marks a vast improvement on Volume 3, offering a far more consistent pair of serials that seldom cease to provide gripping listening no matter your chosen venue of aural consumption. Does “Logic” still follow the roadmap presented by Cyber-tales gone by a little too rigidly at times? Sure, but its stirring explorations of warped human psyches – combined with Adams’ own study in “Rise” of our dangerous strides towards godhood of late – ensure that it’s nonetheless a far superior beast to “Conquest of Far”, particularly with Briggs taking such unnerving pride in chronicling Pertwee / Treloar’s proper first encounter with the Cybermen. This reviewer has spoken before on the matter of whether Big Finish’s abundant New Series productions – see Tales from New Earth, The Churchill Years Volume 2, Gallifrey: Time War and The Diary of River Song Series 3 in 2018’s opening quarter alone – threaten to overshadow their Classic Series output if they’re not careful. Provided that the studio keeps producing such captivating jaunts into the lives of Doctors past, though, then their listeners, stars, scribes and directors should have nothing to worry about in terms of the job security that Hartnell-McGann’s incarnations will maintain going forward. And buck down…see you next year for Volume 5 at the same Bessie-time, same Bessie-place! http://reviews.doctorwhonews.net/2018/03/third_doctor_adventures_volume_4.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr
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