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Indiegogo launches push to support female entrepreneurs
Indiegogo wants to do more to help women become entrepreneurs in the technology industry across the next year. To coincide with International Women's Day,* the crowdfunding site is launching a program to push women-run campaigns between now and March 2017. The site has partnered with organizations like Girls in Tech and Blooming Founders to help novice creators get their projects onto the site. If they sign up with the program, they'll also receive "additional campaign mentoring" from Indiegogo staffers. Indiegogo also wants to remind people that it's already hosted some blockbuster female-fronted campaigns, such as the Jibo social robot and Axent Wear's cat-ear headphones.
Five reasons why crowdfunding projects fail
Engadget was an early proponent of crowdfunding and has helped many exciting gadgets become a reality. The only downside of this is that my inbox now overflows with Kickstarter and Indiegogo pitches looking for similar treatment. In 2015 alone, I received almost 1,400 emails relating to campaigns on those two websites. It may be a chore to get through them all, but it's also given me plenty of time to pinpoint what makes a successful campaign. So, before you quit your day job, save yourself some heartache.
ICYMI: Laser-powered spacecraft, upgraded Atlas bot and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-139655{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-139655, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-139655{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-139655").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: A professor from California is working on a plan to use photonic propulsion to get a spacecraft to Mars within 72 hours. It would use get the craft off of earth with the power generated by photons leaving a laser.
Axent Wear's cat ear headphones are the stuff of anime dreams
New Yorkers have perfected the art of looking but not looking. You know, where you let your eyes glaze over someone as you pass, so you can take them in without making it obvious that you're studying them. For this reason I wasn't entirely sure if anyone noticed the giant glowing cat ears on my head as I walked down the street on my way home from work.
Smart cube lamp shows emoji and sets the mood
LED cube lamps have been around for a while, but they tend to either be make-it-yourself affairs or limited in what they can do. However, Spin-R might finally bring that lighting tech to your living room. It's crowdfunding Tittle (yes, we know), a 512-light lamp that you can program to do your bidding. You can customize its patterns and colors to set the mood for a movie or house party, but the real fun starts when it talks to the outside world. It can pulse in sync with your music -- conversation starter, anyone? -- and you can send 3D emoji to other Tittle owners to share what you're thinking.
The TappLock smart padlock opens with a fingerprint
Still fiddling with a key or combination to lock up your stuff? Get with the times, man! A company called Pishon Lab has launched a smart padlock that you can open with your fingerprint, in much the same way you unlock a smartphone. The TappLock comes in two flavors, a larger version that lasts three years and can charge up your phone, and the smaller TappLock Lite, with a six-month battery life. Thanks to iOS and Android apps, you can also unlock the device using your smartphone and store up to 100 fingerprints, letting friends use it too.
Indiegogo CEO talks crowdfunding, busts out push-ups
Slava Rubin has had a busy week. After ogling a brigade of drones on the show floor and revealing a way to help huge companies like Anheuser-Busch take advantage of crowdfunding, the Indiegogo CEO took a few moments to come say hello on the Engadget CES stage.
Indiegogo helps big companies crowdfund their gadgets
With certain exceptions, crowdfunding is usually geared toward startups with little more than a clever idea under their belt. But what if big companies want to gauge your interest in a new product -- where's their help? Indiegogo thinks it has an answer. It's trotting out Enterprise Crowdfunding, a service that gives large firms the strategy, support and stats they need to get their ideas off the ground. While companies are already using Indiegogo to try out their products (such as GE, Harman and Hasbro), the hope is that this will take some of the anxiety out of the process.
Deranged magnet shoes claim to let you walk on the moon
It's one of those ideas that seems inspired at 3am after several beverages too many, but insane in the cold, harsh light of the following morning. Look, yeah, why not create a shoe that's got two sets of repelling magnets pointed at each other, so that the wearer will feel, right, as if they're floating on air, yeah? That's the concept behind 2016 MoonWalker, an Indiegogo campaign for shoes that claim to make you feel as if you're defying gravity with every step.
Automatic garbage bin promises to clean the oceans
Take a close look at the water in your local marina and you'll probably shudder at the amount of waste floating around. You'd practically need a dedicated clean-up crew to make it safe, wouldn't you? However, a pair of Australian surfers think they have a better way. Their crowdfunded Seabin promises to clean up marinas (and by extension, the ocean) through the one-two combo of a natural fiber garbage bin and an automated, above-the-water pump. It's almost too simple a concept, but it seems to work -- it sucks in all kinds of filth (including oil) and spits out clean water. You'd ideally leave a bunch of Seabins running at the dock all day, keeping the water relatively pristine.
Sunnyclist is an EV powered by the sun and your hard work
It's hard to describe the Sunncyclist, but let's put it this way: it's like a trike and a golf cart produced an environmentally conscious offspring. The electric vehicle's rotatable roof has a solar panel surface that can harness energy from the sun, which it then stores into a battery. In case the sun's hiding behind the clouds and the vehicle needs more power to get where you want to go, you can plug it in to recharge for a bit. But, if you have the optional pedal generators installed for the driver and the two passengers in the back, you can call around and ask your friends if they want a fun workout. You wouldn't exactly pedal the EV as you would a bike; you're merely feeding the battery energy it can use.
Startup promises a legal alternative to Aereo's TV streaming
TiVo may have dreams of becoming the next Aereo and giving you access to over-the-air TV in the cloud, but one startup isn't willing to wait that long. FreeAir.tv is crowdfunding CloudAntenna, an attempt at recreating Aereo's TV streaming model (it even copied the signature "A" logo) without angering broadcasters. As before, you're streaming free-to-air TV shows that you can save to the cloud for later -- the big difference is that you're buying an antenna box that sits at home, rather than access to a company-owned, legally dodgy antenna like Aereo's. You can even pay for a World TV package that gives you 600-plus international stations, in case local programming just isn't enough.
Way is the smart skin sensor nobody needs
For a lot of people, devoting their life in a quest to look forever young is probably a bit too much effort, which is why a device like Way exists. Way is a semi-wearable sensor that monitors the moisture levels in your skin and reports that information to your smartphone. In addition, the donut-shaped gizmo sniffs out the local humidity and UV levels, giving you up-to-the-minute information on looking after your skin.
Omate Rise is a circular Android 3G smartwatch for just $200
Omate probably isn't the first brand that comes to mind when you think of smartwatches, but the truth is it was one of the first to launch a 3G-enabled smartwatch. It's been over two years since then but such devices have yet to fully take off, not to mention that LG has recently canned its latest LTE watch. But that's good news for Omate who is launching the Rise, a $200 fully circular smartwatch, via Indiegogo on December 7th. Much like its predecessor, the Rise runs on full Android 5.1 (customized with Omate's new OUI 4.0) instead of Android Wear, meaning you can side load any regular Android app -- including all the missing Google Play services -- onto it. But of course, you'll have to get used to poking around on that 1.3-inch, 360 x 360 round LCD. Additionally, the Rise also works as a notification watch with phones running on either iOS 9 or Android 4.4 and above.
E-paper sneakers change your style on the fly
If you're the sort to buy multiple pairs of sneakers just to make sure your footwear is always fashionable, you might soon have a way to save a lot of money. David Coelho is crowdfunding ShiftWear, or sneakers that have color e-paper displays in their sides. You only need a mobile app to change your look at a moment's notice (there are promises of a shoe design store), and you can even use animations if you're feeling ostentatious. The shoes are machine-washable, and the e-paper consumes virtually no power if you're using static imagery -- there's even talk of walk-to-charge tech that would save you from ever having to plug in or swap batteries.
This crowdfunded router updates its own security
It's really, really, really hard to make a router sound exciting, but the folks behind the Turris Omnia are betting the device's focus on keeping your sensitive data secure might grab you. The manufacturer's IndieGogo campaign still has 45 days to go, but it's already proved incredibly popular: over a thousand backers have pledged some $274,598 as of this writing. That's 275 percent higher than the threshold for funding the project. The router itself runs Turris' open source operating system (based on the OpenWRT project) which auto updates as soon as any type of vulnerability is discovered by its cadre of developers.
ICYMI: Genetically-based cancer meds, taste's base and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-37143{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-37143, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-37143{width:570px;display:block;}try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-37143").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: Scientists managed to turn taste on and off in mice by activating and silencing brain cells, putting to bed the notion that taste is determined by the tongue. University of Toronto cancer researchers used a patient's genetic material to craft a cancerous mass on a long strip of collagen, then wound it up and gave it the same radiation and chemo drugs a patient would get for that type of illness. They can then stretch the roll out to see whether the treatment killed the cancer cells. The team hopes to eventually tailor people's cancer treatments to their own genetics. And the first battle in the private company space race may have gone to Blue Origin over Space X, for landing its reusable rocket first.
This Raspberry Pi handheld wants to be every gadget in the world
Chances are, you've already got a versatile computer in your pocket -- smartphones play music, record video, play games and more -- but what if it was smaller, open source and completely hackable? Then you'd have something like the Poco "supercomputer," a portable media device with the footprint of a credit card and the heart of a Raspberry Pi.
Security system watches over your home without cameras
You don't have many great choices for home security systems right now. Conventional systems are expensive and effectively fixed in place, while connected cameras are conspicuous and carry the risk (however small) that someone might spy on you. Xandem thinks it has a better way, however. It's crowdfunding a security system that uses motion-detecting wireless mesh networking (previously the stuff of research) to alert you to intruders. It only requires plug-in nodes to work, and the resulting radio frequency web can both travel through objects and follow subjects. If all goes well, you're getting more complete coverage that stays hidden and reduces the chance of a false positive -- you can even track motion in apps or the web to see if it's a burglar or just a family member who got home early.
Target and Indiegogo team up to get crowd-funded wares to retail
When you back a project on Indiegogo, Kickstarter or any other crowd-funding site, chances are you've never seen the product you're putting your faith (and cash) in the flesh. Target and Indiegogo want to change that. The two companies announced that select devices from Indiegogo campaigns would show up in the retailer's Open House connected-home experiment in San Francisco. It's a small step towards giving the folks that can actually deliver their device a chance to show the world, they actually made something that's worth buying.