Professor Hod Lipso, a roboticist at Columbia Engineering who works in the areas of artificial intelligence and digital manufacturing, has along with his students developed a prototype of a 3D food printer. This machine, which resembles a coffee machine, is able to generate edible items such as pastes, gels, powders, and liquid ingredients. While Lipso states that a 3D food printer cannot replace conventional cooking, he says this machine can produce a variety of fresh food by \u201ctransforming digital recipes and basic ingredients supplied in frozen cartridges into healthy dishes that can supplement our daily intake.\u201d After having developed simpler ingredients like cream cheese, the team plans to generate food that mimics oven-cooked food. Using new software being developed by Computer Science Professor Eitan Grinspun, Lipso hopes to perfect his prototype by the end of the year. Lipso and his team deem this printer to be a revolutionary option from the perspective of controlling nutrition to saving energy and transport costs to creating novel food items.<\/p>\n