BURLINGTON, Mass., USA, Nov. 7, 2006 - Z Corporation's newly released ZScanner™ 700 has made a dramatic impact on the manufacturing industry and has been recognized by Popular Science magazine, the authority on science and technology in everyday life, and NASA Tech Briefs, the largest U.S.-circulation engineering magazine.
Popular Science yesterday announced that the ZScanner 700 is a winner of the publications' Best of What's New Award. "Best of What's New is the ultimate Popular Science accolade, representing a year's worth of work evaluating thousands of products," says Mark Jannot, editor of Popular Science. "These awards honor innovations that not only influence the way we live today, but that change the way we think about the future."
Best of What's New winners are awarded inclusion in the much-anticipated December issue of Popular Science, the most widely read issue of the year since the debut of Best of What's New in 1987.
The ZScanner 700 is the first handheld, self-positioning 3D scanner that can digitize 3D surfaces in real time for reverse engineering, packaging design, digital archiving and a wide range of emerging applications. It is also the first 3D scanner that allows the user to move the target object during scanning while offering the advantage of displaying a real-time, on-screen image of the surface being scanned.
The ZScanner 700's speed and mobility are ideal for general manufacturing applications but also for medical applications, which explains the Popular Science award in the personal health category. Real-time generation of patients' unique body part geometry can accelerate the custom design of braces or prosthetics.
NASA Tech Briefs
The ZScanner 700 has been chosen as NASA Tech Briefs October 2006 Product of the Month - the one product reviewed during the preceding two months that demonstrates the most practical value and technical merit for the publication's 190,000 design engineering readers. The ZScanner 700 is a candidate for NASA Tech Briefs Product of the Year, which will be selected in December.
In addition, Z Corporation was recently named the 2006 Bronze Medal recipient of the Northeast Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing, a recognition of the company's prowess in the practice of lean manufacturing. The Shingo prize is administered by the Greater Boston Manufacturing Partnership at the College of Management (GBMP) at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. The award was once dubbed the "Nobel Prize of Manufacturing" by BusinessWeek.
The ZScanner 700 is available today through Z Corp.'s worldwide reseller network.
About Best of What's New
Each year, the editors of Popular Science review thousands of products in search of the top 100 tech innovations of the year; breakthrough products and technologies that represent a significant leap in their categories. The winners — the Best of What's New — are awarded inclusion in the much-anticipated December issue of Popular Science, the most widely read issue of the year since the debut of Best of What's New in 1987. Best of What's New awards are presented to 100 new products and technologies in 10 categories: Automotive, Aviation & Space, Computing, Engineering, Gadgets, General Innovation, Home Entertainment, Home Tech, Personal Health and Recreation.
About Popular Science
Founded in 1872, Popular Science is the world's largest science and technology magazine; with a circulation of 1.45 million and 6.5 million monthly readers. Each month, Popular Science reports on the intersection of science and everyday life, with an eye toward what's new and why it matters. Popular Science is published by Time4 Media, a subsidiary of Time Inc., which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Time Warner Inc.
About NASA Tech Briefs
First issued as single sheet-reports in the 1960s and converted to a magazine format in the 1970s, NASA Tech Briefs has been a joint publishing venture of NASA and AssociatedBusiness Publications (New York City) since 1985, a pioneering government-private sector partnership that has saved taxpayers millions of dollars in publishing costs while dramatically increasing the magazine's reach to OEM design/development engineers and managers. Today, NASA Tech Briefs' qualified circulation surpasses 190,000.
About Z Corporation
Z Corporation makes products that enable users to capture, edit, and print 3D data with unprecedented speed, ease, versatility and affordability. These products include the world's fastest high-definition 3D printers — machines that produce physical 3D models from digital data in full color - and uniquely portable 3D scanners - handheld machines that digitize 3D surfaces in real time. Z Corp. technology is enabling a wide range of applications in manufacturing, architecture, civil engineering, reverse engineering, geographic information systems (GIS), medicine and entertainment.
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