A friend and classmate of mine, Xo Wang,

3D Printing
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1

A friend and classmate of mine, Xo Wang, puts in his $0.02 on the announced 3D Printing support for Windows 8.1 from a Computer Science perspective.
http://makezine.com/2013/07/04/why-microsofts-3d-printing-rocks/

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In the meantime, Fedora 19 has also announced built-in support for 3D Printing:
http://www.3ders.org/articles/20130703-just-released-fedora-19-comes-with-3d-printing-software.html

3

Minor correction on the Make article: “[…]but they’re not building 3D printers and they don’t appear to be affiliated with any one manufacturer”
Both Makerbot and Microsoft are actually quite verbose about their partnership - it was that partnership that probably spawned 3D printer support in the first place, but it most likely also means that Makerbots will be the printers that are best supported in Windows 8.1.

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To be totally honest, their statements looks more like Microsoft capitalizing on MakerBot’s recent publicity and limited business partnership - they sell Replicators in one or two of their stores in the Bay area - than anything else. In the long-term, it’s in Microsoft’s interest to have an operating system that’s compatible with as many printers as is possible.

5

“Windows Store”! Going to get interesting. Everyone seems to be fighting to be THE repository.