By/  Patrick Thibodeau

June 26, 2014 06:31 AM ET Computerworld - Before the Revolutionary War, sheets of tin imported from England were fashioned by people working at home into plates, cups and candle holders. They shared production techniques with one another and collectively produced enough products to give rise to a distribution system known as Yankee Peddlers.

Today, the raw tools of individual production are sensors, circuit boards, 3D printers, open-source development platforms and cloud services. Kickstarter, not horseback peddlers, is providing the initial capital.

 

ComputerWorld/ full read here/ http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9249389/A_new_industrial_age_is_being_built_on_sensors_3D_printing_and_the_cloud