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News: the US military is developing its own 3D printers for the frontline which will enable soldiers to quickly and cheaply produce spare parts for their weapons and equipment.

By bringing the new technology to the battlefield, troops will be able to produce spare parts for sensitive equipment, such as GPS receivers and air drones, without having to wait weeks for new deliveries.

“Parts for these systems break frequently, and many of them are produced overseas, so there’s a long lead time for replacement parts,” said operations research analyst D. Shannon Berry in a statement.

“Instead of needing a massive manufacturing logistics chain, a device that generates replacement parts is now small and light enough to be easily carried in a backpack or on a truck,” he added.

The Future Warfare centre at Space and Missile Defense Command in Alabama has been developing its own 3D printers as an alternative to the more expensive printers available commercially. Early versions of its printer have cost just under $700 each, compared to at least $2,000 for commercial models.

The 3D printers are now being rolled out to the frontline in shipping containers that act as mobile production labs. The first of the $2.8m labs, which contains 3D printers and CNC machines to make parts from aluminium, plastic and steel, was sent to Afghanistan in July this year. While there are no plans to print weapons from scratch, the labs could produce spare parts to repair them, according to Pete Newell, head of the US army’s Rapid Equipping Force.

The military developments mirror similar advances claimed by amateur gun enthusiasts in recent months, with a group of libertarian activists in the US releasing blueprints for 3D printed weapons, while another hobbyist announced the successful firing of a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle using 3D-printed parts.

Following that news, Ronen Kadushin, a pioneer of the open design movement, told Dezeen that advances in 3D printing could allow people to “print ammunition for an army”. “Nobody will kill anybody with a 3D printed gun soon, I hope. But in the future, you don’t know,” he warned.

The technology has also been taking off in civilian manufacturing, with President Obama investing $30m of government money in a national 3D printing centre in Youngstown, Ohio this August. The National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute is part of a military-led public-private partnership to research the possibilities of mass-producing machine parts.

We’ve been covering the latest developments in 3D printing as the technology proliferates through the design world. In a recent interview with Dezeen, Janne Kyttanen, co-founder of design studio Freedom of Creation and creative director of 3D printer company 3D Systems, predicted that consumers would soon be able to save money by printing products at home rather than shopping for them, while MakerBot Industries CEO and co-founder Bre Pettis told Dezeen that cheap 3D printers would place manufacturing back in the home, as it was before the industrial revolution.

See all our stories about 3D printing »

Photograph is from Shutterstock.

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News: a trawler fishing net that filters out young and endangered fish from the catch has won this year’s James Dyson Award for students working on innovative engineering solutions.

Developed by Royal College of Art graduate Dan Watson, the SafetyNet uses a combination of strategically placed holes and lighting to separate fish of different ages and species.

“This tangible technology approaches a serious environmental problem, we should celebrate it,” said industrial designer James Dyson, founder of the award. “SafetyNet shows how young graduates like Dan can tackle global issues ignored by established industries in new and inventive ways.”

Since graduating, Watson has started a company, SafetyNet Technologies, to try and commercialise his technology. “The escape rings are designed to be low maintenance,” he says. “The rings are illuminated, acting like an emergency exit sign for the fish. Water flowing through the wide open meshes guides the smaller fish to freedom while retaining the larger ones.” Read more about the SafetyNet sustainable trawling net in our earlier story.

Watson receives £10,000 in prize money, which he’ll use to further develop prototypes and finalise government testing for the system. His university department, Innovation Design Engineering, also receives £10,000.

Two runners up each receive £2000: Jason Hill and Liz Tsai of the Art Center College of Design and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US were awarded for the Beth Project, a self-adjusting prosthetic limb, while James McNab of Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand was awarded for his Revival vest for divers, which automatically inflates if it detects signs of drowning and brings the wearer to the surface. See all the runners up on the James Dyson Award website.

The James Dyson Award is an international student competition organised by the James Dyson Foundation with a simple brief: “Design something that solves a problem.” Last year’s winner was a system that extracts moisture from air like a desert-dwelling beetle by Edward Linacre from Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne – read more in our earlier story on the 2011 James Dyson Award winner.

Dyson himself became a household name with his bag-less vacuum cleaner that famously boasts no loss of suction and he’s since gone on to create blade-less fans. See more designs by James Dyson on Dezeen or listen to our podcast interview with James Dyson.

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News: Bahrain-based investment bank Investcorp has agreed to pay $140m to buy luxury design brand Georg Jensen, the Danish luxury brand famous for its silverware and jewellery, from Danish private equity group Axcel.

Investcorp hopes to expand the company, founded by silversmith Georg Jensen in Copenhagen in 1904, into the growing luxury markets of Asia and particularly China.

“Georg Jensen stands to become one of the leading hard luxury brands of the 21st century, leveraging a brand legacy going back more than 100 years and a unique Danish design DNA,” said Hazem Ben-Gacem, head of European corporate investment at Investcorp.

Ulrik Garde Due, CEO of Georg Jensen, said it had been necessary to take a long-term view of the company’s development. “Investcorp’s commitment to developing the brand will ensure we can further strengthen Georg Jensen’s unique position globally as the leading Danish luxury lifestyle brand,” he said.

Investcorp’s takeover of Gucci in 1988 and the subsequent appointment of Tom Ford as creative director helped the failing Italian fashion brand to turn its fortunes around and become a huge global business, while its ownership of Tiffany in the 1980s saw the launch of the American jeweller’s first outlet in Europe.

Axcel acquired Georg Jensen in 2001 when it was part of the Royal Scandinavia group.

See all our stories about jewellery »

Photograph is from Shutterstock.

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News: Moscow skyscraper Mercury City topped out today and has overtaken Renzo Piano’s The Shard as the tallest building in Europe.

According to buildings analyst Emporis, the tower surpassed the 310-metre-height of Piano’s London tower in September and it now stands at 339 metres tall.

The tower is one of five Russian skyscrapers in the list of ten tallest buildings in Europe, while Moscow is also the city with the most high-rise buildings on the continent. As an expert in large-scale construction projects, Emporis reports that the property boom there can be credited to a number of factors. “Many Russian and foreign investors focus on prestigious building projects,” said analyst Matthew Keutenius. “Furthermore, there are less building regulations in Moscow than in other European metropolises.”

Featuring a shimmering facade of golden glass, Mercury City was designed by Russian architect Mikhail Posokhin and the late American architect Frank Williams, and is due to be inaugurated in early 2013.

However, its reign as tallest building will likely be short-lived, as under construction nearby is the planned 506-metre Federation Tower, which is set to complete next year.

Compared with skyscrapers globally, Europe’s buildings are still relatively small. The tallest building in the world currently is the SOM-designed Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which at 828 metres is almost 500 metres higher than Mercury City. Construction has also started on the Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, which will be over 1000 metres high once complete.

See more stories about skyscrapers »

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News: Apple has announced that it’s shaking up its senior executive management team to better integrate hardware and software design, following claims that the company is “a little bit behind” in this area.

In addition to his role as senior vice president of industrial design, Jonathan Ive (above) will now head up a human interface department. Ive’s design team was named best design studio of the past 50 years by D&AD in September and Apple’s statement yesterday said “his incredible design aesthetic has been the driving force behind the look and feel of Apple’s products for more than a decade.”

His promotion follows Yves Behar saying in our interview at Dezeen Live last month that he has set up a user interface group at his San Francisco design studio Fuseproject to explore how to bring the disciplines of hardware and software design together. “Designing these two things as one at the same time is really a completely new, really fascinating exercise for me as a designer,” Behar told Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs. “The opportunities are there and the fact that we are not taking these opportunities as designers I think is lazy.”

In the same interview, Behar rejected the “skeuomorphic” approach adopted by companies including Apple, which has led to the grainy leather-effect Calendar with torn-off pages (below) and wood-effect bookshelf applications in its products, saying that “there’s now many companies looking at it in a way that’s quite interesting and Apple actually is a little bit behind in that area.”

Apple also announced the departure of senior vice president of iOS software Scott Forstall, who was said to be a proponent of the skeuomorphic approach within Apple. He’s to serve as adviser to CEO Tim Cook in the interim before leaving next year.

The news comes as part of a wider reshuffle of Apple’s management intended to “encourage even more collaboration between the company’s world-class hardware, software and services teams.”

Senior vice president of internet software and services Eddy Cue – whose team is already responsible for the iTunes Store, the App Store, the iBookstore and iCloud – will take on the additional responsibility of Siri and Maps. Senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi will lead development of both the iOS and OS X operating platforms, previously run by separate teams, and Bob Mansfield will lead a new department combining all the company’s teams working on wireless technologies.

See all our stories about Apple »

Top image: the iPad mini, launched last week

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