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Indiegogo's crowdfunding insurance pays you back if projects go bust
If you've poured a lot of money into crowdfunding, you've probably backed a project that either missed its release date or was an out-and-out fraud -- and since there are rarely recourses in these cases, that often means that you've wasted your money. For Indiegogo, this is enough of a concern that it's now testing crowdfunding insurance that compensates you if a campaign goes belly-up. All you do is pay extra on top of your pledge; if the promised goods arrive more than three months late or don't show up at all, you get your money back. Indiegogo is only trialing insurance with one campaign, Olive's anti-stress wristband, but it might expand the offering if the dry run proves successful.
Omnipresenz lets armchair explorers control real human avatars
Traveling has gotten increasingly accessible thanks to budget airlines and services like Airbnb or Couchsurfing. But, if you'd still rather do some armchair exploration, and you've already seen most of what Street View can offer, then this Indiegogo campaign might tickle your virtual wanderlust. The Barcelona-based project -- called Omnipresenz -- wants to give you the power to control a human avatar. With a camera-equipped helmet, your avatar feeds you real-time video and audio as they walk around town. You can also instruct them to complete tasks as they go, through the interface you can see below the fold. If you're feeling benevolent, you can ask them to do something nice for others -- such as buy food for a stray dog, or give a stranger some flowers. Before that happens though, the service's users will have to vote on it first and raise funds to get it done.
Flic is a 'smart button' that tells your iPhone to STFU
As far as smart gadgets go, Flic is about as simple as it gets. It's a tiny magnetic button that can be programmed to control various functions of your phone, from silencing an alarm to snapping a photo. Each button can be programmed with three different functions -- initiated by either a single tap, double tap, or push and hold -- and at US$27 they're relatively cheap. If this sounds like something you'd love to get your hands on, you're not alone, and the Flic campaign on Indiegogo has raised over $117,000 in just the first two day, with 46 more to go. Flic's original goal was $80,000. The potential uses for a Flic button seem to be pretty much endless, and the promo video shows it being used as a one-button activator for phone-based smart home automation features, an emergency alert button that sends a text or GPS coordinates if danger strikes, and a pre-programmed phone shortcut that can call someone with a tap. Perhaps its most astounding feature is that it has a battery life of up to five years. You can pre-order a single Flic button for the $27 standard price ($23 if you manage to snag one before the 500 discounted units run out), and you can save cash if you order more than one. Personally, I'd order one just to use as a snooze button, but that's probably just me.
Kickstarter 'fraudster' finds second home on Indiegogo, as per usual
What do you do when you've been outed as a fraud and your Kickstarter was pulled? You go to Indiegogo, of course. Anonabox was a $45 device that promised to route your home's internet connection through (privacy-focused network) Tor without any fiddling in the same way that PORTAL works. In the current climate, it was no surprise to see the project earn $600,000 in pledges in just the first few days. Slowly, however, people began to ask questions about creator August Germar after the hardware was found to be an off-the-shelf unit made by a Chinese OEM and the software turned out to be about as secure as a slice of Emmental.
3 fun crowdfunding campaigns, including a "Smart deodorant applicator"
I'm not doing my usual crowdfunding roundup for a few weeks, but thought I'd give you a few fun Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns to whet your appetite for being a backer. First, here's a project that I thought was a joke when I first heard about it. ClickStick is billed as "The World's First Smart Deodorant Applicator". That's right, the product you didn't know you needed! But if you want to have deodorant automatically reordered when you're getting low and get just the right amount of BO Juice applied to your armpits with every application, ClickStick is the project to back. It's currently over 50 percent funded with over a month to go. Next, the Internet of Things is getting a thumbs-up from Aria, which is a connected indoor air pollution and radon detector that comes - you guessed it - with an accompanying app. The idea is to give you a warning if radon or volatile organic components are in too high a quantity in your air supply. Aria is only 2 percent funded with over fifty days to go, but if you're interested in keeping your personal air supply safe, you might want to keep Aria in mind. Finally, Amiko is an interesting campaign for anyone who has to take prescription medications on a regular basis. To quote the Amiko team, "It's a fitbit for your medicine packs. It fits around your medicine packages (starting with inhalers), measures how you are taking the med, when you are taking and if you need more – and sends the info to your phone (or to the phone of caregivers). Amiko addresses a mega-problem known as medication adherence which kills 120,000 people a year and costs US$290B in healthcare costs." Amiko has only 6 percent funding with about five weeks left, but if you've ever had issues knowing whether you - or a loved one - has taken medication, Amiko can let you know what's up. Making sure that you or others have taken needed medication is a huge issue these days, and it's only going to get worse with an aging population. We'll be back next week with a full roundup of exciting, useful, and just plain weird crowedfunded projects. Until then, Happy Halloween!
The sad, frustrating story of crowdfunded products that never ship
When it comes to crowdfunded projects, I have to admit that I'm very lucky. Every project that I've backed -- five in all -- has eventually shipped product. Although some of those products failed to meet my expectations from the Kickstarter or Indiegogo hype, I felt that I paid a fair price for what I eventually received. But what about those projects that you drop your hard-earned bucks on that never make it to your doorstep or desktop? That's the subject of an Ars Technica post by Casey Johnston published yesterday. Johnston highlights some of the more notable crowdfunding disasters, which hopefully none of our astute readers fell victim to. There was MyIDkey (seen above), which nabbed US$473,333 on Kickstarter and a total of $3.5 million of funding. The idea was a USB dongle that stored and displayed login information on a small display. It was even designed to provide voice search for your logins. Instead, the few devices that shipped were buggy and poorly built, and mismanagement resulted in a waste of all $3.5 million of capital on ... nothing. Or how about the Indiegogo project for the Kreyos Smartwatch, a highly-hyped campaign that raised $1.5 million? This project was also a model of mismanagement, mixed with some highly questionable business decisions. A core team of four people was assigned to the project, most of which were part-timers. The company spent the nest egg on a manufacturing relationship with a Chinese company that kept delaying production despite having most of the funding money. The bitter end of the project resulted in a handful of devices actually shipping. Johnston notes that "In the end, the few Kreyos watches that shipped met few of the team's original goals: they were not at all waterproof, they batteries did not last the promised amount of time, and the firmware was buggy." The company ran out of money after a handful of refunds were made, leaving many backers with nothing for their investment. The road to success is littered with a number of ugly carcasses, and Johnston says that although there is no recourse available directly from the crowdfunding sites, the terms and conditions place the final onus on the project creators. Sadly, there are very few cases where disgruntled backers have been able to recoup money from failed projects. The bottom line? If you back a project, go into it with your eyes wide open and with the realization that you may never receive the promised product.
Seldon Crisis rebrands as Sudden Crisis
Seldon Crisis -- the name, at least -- is no more. The science-fiction sandbox has rebranded itself as Sudden Crisis following an IP dispute that left its Kickstarter campaign neutered. "We want to let everyone know that the project and game now has a new name: Sudden Crisis," the studio posted to Facebook. "Everything stays the same, this is the last change needed to separate us from one world and open a new one, one wholly created by us and you. You will shortly see the change take effect across our sites." Sudden Crisis is currently in the middle of an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds for the project.
Crowdfunding Roundup: Taking a break
Hey, crowdfunding fans. I just wanted to let you know that your weekly crowdfunded project list is on hiatus until November 6 due to a previously scheduled trip that I'm currently on. On November 6 I'll be back with another list of Kickstarter, Indiegogo and independently-run campaigns seeking funding for Apple-related projects. Until then, be sure to visit the crowdfunding site of your choice for a little browsing on your own.
Seldon Crisis removes Asimov references following IP dispute
The sci-fi sandbox Seldon Crisis initially tried to draw attention to itself through copious amounts of name-dropping with revered author Isaac Asimov, although it turns out that this marketing plan may have backfired. Its Kickstarter campaign has been canceled, with page saying the game is "the subject of an intellectual property dispute." The team attempted to clarify the situation with a post earlier this week: "We were/are speaking with the Asimov estate regarding a partnership, but until those talks are concluded we were asked to not mention certain elements of his novels. This is completely understandable (copyright law demands holders actively protect their copyright or they can lose it). We have taken the necessary measures to fully comply with what has been stated." In the meantime, Seldon Crisis' fundraising efforts have moved over to Indiegogo, where the team is attempting to rake in £250,000 over the next month.
Crowdfunding Roundup: Smart Yoga mats and dumb-looking pyramids
Each week, TUAW provides readers with an update on new or significant crowdfunded Apple-related projects in the news. While our policy is to not go into detail on items that haven't reached at least 80 percent of their funding goal, this update is designed to give readers a heads-up on projects they might find interesting enough to back. So many of the Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns we cover are power-related, primarily because we all use our devices so much that we're constantly running the batteries down (well, except for those of us with the iPhone 6 Plus, of course...). AMPY is quite a different product, capturing kinetic energy from your movements, convering it into power, and then giving you a way to connect your device for a quick charge. Sound far-fetched? It's not. The project is already funded to the tune of 127 percent with 24 days to go. Hey, here's an idea: grab a ruggedized solid state drive and strap it to your wrist. No, unfortunately I'm not making this up - this is KUFF, AKA "the future of wearable storage." But hey, it will be Open Source! And have a strap! Sorry, why not just get a regular portable SSD and carry it in your pocket? Obviously I'm not "sharing the vision" with this team. With 37 days to go, KUFF is about 6 percent funded. An intelligent Yoga mat... Yep, it has sensors, and a smartphone or tablet app "guides you through a series of audio and visual indicators, allowing a more detailed and insightful Yoga practice." At 189 percent of funding with 14 days left, I don't think SmartMat needs my backing. And here's another "smart" object. A lot of companies have had smart power outlets for years; the Smart Outlet by Newbeem is another one. Plug it in, and you have three outlets... Only one is Wi-Fi enabled, and there are two others that are "regular". All are surge protected, so there's that. The project is about 70 percent funded with about 8 days to go. We've seen some microscope lenses and kits for iPhone and iPad before, but never has there been an affordable high magnification microscope lens. Dotlens wants every student to have his or her own microscope. Attach these little dot lenses (hence the name) to the camera of your device, and you have either a 15 power or 120 power microscope in your hands. That 120x Dotlens has a minimum resolution of 1 micrometer! Sadly, this campaign is running a bit behind, with only 21 percent raised with less than two weeks to go. You can help by backing the project for as little as $10 (15x) or $25 (120x). Some people are concerned about the fact that the iSight camera on their Mac can theoretically be hacked, thus providing someone with a view of your home or office without your knowledge. Rather than using the time-honored tradition of placing electrical tape over the camera, the Nope project creates a nice, professional-looking magnetic cover that you can take off when you need to actually use the camera. This is funded big time: 10,242 percent funded with over a month to go. Get in on the action for $5 or more. Sometimes I feel like I've seen certain campaigns before, simply because they remind me of another Kickstarter or Indiegogo project. That was the case with StandStand, which fellow TUAW editor Dave Caolo pointed out to me. It's actually a pretty nifty product -- a portable wood standing desk that weighs less than two pounds but has been tested to withstand over 900 pounds of weight. It's funded to the tune of over 550 percent with five days to go, so StandStand is ready for launch. You can still get in on the fun as a backer. Occasionally, I have to call out a campaign for public shaming just for the sheer joy of pointing out some questionable design choices. P-VOX is this week's winner, and what's really bizarre is that this combo pyramid, speaker, desk lamp, analog clock and charger actually has a chance of making it to production. Yeah, it's 73 percent funded with less than a week to go. Why do I have a bad feeling we're going to see infomercials for P-VOX on late night TV? We'll be back next Thursday for another roundup of crowdfunded projects that you can support or ignore. Many thanks again to Hal Sherman for providing some tips about new and exciting projects, and if you're aware of any other crowdfunded Apple-related projects, be sure to let us know about them through the Tip Us button at the upper right of the TUAW home page for future listing on the site.
Crowdfunding Roundup: A hybrid smartcam, a robot to play with your pets, and more
Each week, TUAW provides readers with an update on new or significant crowdfunded Apple-related projects in the news. While our policy is to not go into detail on items that haven't reached at least 80 percent of their funding goal, this update is designed to give readers a heads-up on projects they might find interesting enough to back. Webcams are great for watching what's going on at your home or office, but what if your Internet service goes out? Or what if you'd like to temporarily place a camera somewhere that doesn't have Wi-Fi handy? That's where link-U comes in, a hybrid smartcam that - when outfitted with a mobile data SIM - can use the cellular data network to send images. link-U also has an internal battery, so you can send video for up to 8 hours. This one just hit Indiegogo and has already raised 11 percent of its goal with over a month to go. Remember seeing those design concepts for a reversible USB charging cord a few months back? The idea is simple: make a USB cable that can be plugged in either way and still provide the connectivity and power that your connected device requires. Well, apparently a lot of people love the idea, as the BelayCords campaign on Kickstarter is currently 7,085 percent funded with 25 days to go! Have you ever wondered what you could do with a used iPhone? Rico is a whimsical smarthome device that turns your old phone into "the brains and eyes" of a security device. It's 32 percent funded with three weeks to go, so if you'd like to give your old iPhones a new career, back this campaign on Kickstarter. Most modern cars have a built-in Tire Pressure Management System, which is useful for validating that yes, you DO have a flat tire. FOBO Tire consists of valve stem caps that go on each of your tires, transmitting constant tire pressure information to your phone. It's a great idea, since most TPMS's won't tell you exactly what the pressure is in each tire, nor will they inform you as to which tire has just gone flat. Apparently a lot of people like this campaign, which is 535 percent funded with about a week to go. Playing with our furry kids while we're away is a popular crowdfunding theme, with the Kittyo remote cat toy/feeder/monitor killing it earlier this year with over 900 percent funding. Now here's a little robot that will keep your cat or dog amused. Pawly can be driven around your home, amusing your pet and letting you talk to them remotely from your smartphone. With three weeks to go, Pawly is 32 percent funded. What's more important than pets? Your kids. And when they get sick and are running a fever, it's often a good idea to monitor their temperature. Fever Smart is a reusable patch that you place into the armpit of a sick child, and it transmits your child's temperature to your iPhone. You get continuous readings in an app, plus alarms if a certain level is reached. The campaign is funded at 137 percent of goal with two weeks to go, but there's still time to be an early bird backer. You may have seen the TUAW review of the Desktop Chair by MOKU, a beautiful wood laminate stand for an iPad. Now MOKU has a campaign on Kickstarter for the Desktop Stool, which works with either your iPad or MacBook ... or even both at the same time. With three weeks to go, the campaign is currently 50 percent funded. If there's one thing that's annoying about external battery packs, it's that they usually take forever to recharge. Wouldn't it be great to have a battery pack that could get enough of a charge in five minutes to be able to fully recharge an iPhone 5? That's the idea behind Pronto, a fast-charge battery pack that can get enough juice in an hour to recharge that same iPhone 5 nine times! This is from Power Practical, the same geniuses behind the PowerPot. A lot of people want this product - it's already nearly 200 percent funded with a month to go. Sexual assault and other violent crimes are a problem worldwide, and the Whistl smartphone case is a possible solution. Combining a loud alarm and using the LED flash of your phone to deter a criminal, as well as providing ways to have others monitor your progress and even have an app notify the police if you don't respond, Whistl can be a literal lifesaver. At this time, the project is 21 percent funded with just under a month to go. Ambi Climate is a Nest-like smart thermostat that works with wall and window-mounted air conditioners with infrared remote controls to cut energy usage and make your life more comfortable. It's a popular campaign - with 35 days to go, the project is at about 240 percent of its funding goal. We'll be back next Thursday for another roundup of crowdfunded projects that you can support or ignore. Many thanks again to Hal Sherman for providing some tips about new and exciting projects, and if you're aware of any other crowdfunded Apple-related projects, be sure to let us know about them through the Tip Us button at the upper right of the TUAW home page for future listing on the site.
Crowdfunding roundup: A Bluetooth boombox, smart lamp speaker and more
Each week, TUAW provides readers with an update on new or significant crowdfunded Apple-related projects in the news. While our policy is to not go into detail on items that haven't reached at least 80 percent of their funding goal, this update is designed to give readers a heads-up on projects they might find interesting enough to back. Starting off this week, we have something that every street performer will want - a custom portable Bluetooth boombox fittingly called the Street Performer. The boombox is made from laser cut wood to feature your logo or artwork and features a battery that will last for all 10 hours of your annoying street corner performance. There's only one problem - the campaign has only 1 percent of its funding with three weeks to go. Since you've been streaming music from your iPhone, you don't have any need for that old fashioned CD player that's mounted in your car's dash, right? Well, how about turning the slot of that CD player into the bottom mount for Radmo, which bills itself as "the perfect mobile phone mount for your car". They even show it holding an iPad Air, so this sucker is sturdy. It's also funded to the tune of 716 percent with a month to go. You'd love to dabble in electronics, but you have absolutely no skills. That's the reason behind SAM, which combines a kit of electronic hardware, a Mac app, and the Internet to create a powerful way to learn. The project is funded with 26 days to go, but you can still get in on the action. Tired of dumb lamp speakers? How about a smart lamp speaker for a change? In case you're wondering what a lamp speaker is, ummm, it's a lamp and a speaker mashed together and connected to an app. The Smart Lamp Speaker project from Emoi wants to let you "be touched by light and sound". Isn't that possible by just getting out of your house occasionally? Anyway, the project will never see light (see what I did there?) without your backing, as it's only at a mere 13 percent of funding with 24 days to go. Move over, Apple Watch! You're not even on the market yet, and already there's something better - the EPIC Watchphones. They're watches with a built-in cell phone and what appears to be a totally unusable UI. This Indiegogo flex funding project has raised a whopping $257, about 1 percent of its goal, but you can toss your money into the campaign in the next three weeks to make your Dick Tracy watch phone a reality. I know that one thing every TUAW reader has been wanting is a USB drive with up to 128GB of storage that's also a 7,800mAh battery pack. Well, wait no longer! PowerDrive is 49 percent funded with about a month to go, and it's just that - a big USB drive and a charger for iPhone and iPad. Last this week is a security project called Project Sierra, designed to plug into your network and allow everyone to access the internet anonymously and with full protection. Basically, it's a box that encrypts your data and also uses an "international network of proxies" to hide your location. There's not much excitement for this project, which is zero percent funded with four weeks to go. We'll be back next Thursday for another roundup of crowdfunded projects that you can support or ignore. Many thanks again to Hal Sherman for providing some tips about new and exciting projects, and if you're aware of any other crowdfunded Apple-related projects, be sure to let us know about them through the Tip Us button at the upper right of the TUAW home page for future listing on the site.
Pavlok needs you to shock more people into breaking bad habits
There's no way you'd use a shock collar to train your beloved dog, but you wouldn't mind using one on yourself if it means breaking your nastiest habits, eh? If that's the case, then your day has come: Pavlok (a wearable band that can zap you with electricity) is now up on Indiegogo, with its designer hoping to raise $50,000 to develop more features and to begin mass production. In order to train yourself to stay away from bad habits or continue doing good ones, you'll need to program the Pavlok app -- for instance, you can instruct it to zap you awake if you hit snooze twice on your alarm. The good news is that you can set the electricity the wristband zaps you with from 17 to 340 volts, so you can adjust it accordingly and make sure each it's not strong enough to actually hurt.
Hands-on with the Tintag rechargeable item tracker
As part of our continuing coverage of the world of connected devices and of crowdsourced projects, I see a lot of item tracking devices. These are usually little Bluetooth tags that connect to something you want to keep track of - keys, backpacks, computers, cats, you name it - that work with an iPhone app to notify you when the tag is over a certain distance away or beep and flash when you want to find the item. To date, most of the tracking tags have either required a replaceable battery, needed to be charged up via micro-USB every once in a while or simply stopped working once a non-replaceable battery ran out of juice. Now there's Tintag, an item tracker that recharges via a small wireless dock. Tintag is still seeking funding through Indiegogo, but is just about there with 93 percent of funding with over a month to go. The Tintag team decided that the best way to get the word out about their product was to send out a prototype unit and beta app so that I could really get a feel for how it works. The charging base station and tag are obviously prototypes, with rough edges and none of the product markings we're accustomed to seeing on electronic devices, but Tintag has a lot more technical polish than some item trackers that are currently being sold. The first thing you'll want to do with a Tintag is charge it. For this purpose, you take the tag - a little 1.5 x 1.1 x .24 inch (39 x 28 x 6 mm) rectangle - and drop it onto the 3-inch (76 mm) diameter charging dock. A series of white LEDs flash to let you know that the tag has been placed in the proper place, and then a red LED on the tag flashes to let you know that charging is underway. Once Tintag is charged up and the app is loaded on your iPhone, you can begin to have fun with it! The app is surprisingly polished for a beta, and is one of the more well-designed tracker apps I've used. The app prompts you to pull down on a splash screen to add a Tintag, name the tag, and then add a photo of whatever it is that you're going to track - say, a backpack or a tool. Once that is done, the app displays a screen showing your Tintags. Tap one of the Tintags, and the app begins searching for the device. The location is marked on a map (I found that the beta app had the wrong location by about a quarter mile), and there's an indication of the status of the device. If it's on the charging dock it will show that the battery's charging, and once it's off the dock you get an idea of the charge level in the battery. The approximate distance to the tag is displayed as well, and there are app buttons to let you make the tag beep (it's quite quiet, like most tracking tags) or flash (it lights up a series of bright white LEDs around the exterior of the tag). You can also define a safety range for your Tintag. In other words, if you're over a certain distance away, the app notifies you that you'd better go back and pick up whatever it is that you're tracking. That feature seemed a wee bit buggy in this beta software, but then again, it is a beta. The battery life of the Tintag is about four months, after which you just drop the device on the dock again for a six-hour recharge. One very cool feature is that the Tintag can be attached to multiple phones, meaning that family members can all search for the same tags. The developers of Tintag expect to send out 500 functional prototypes like the one I tested by November 2014, so beta testers (those who pledge US$65) won't have to wait long at all. From what I see from the prototype, Tintag is the item tracker you've been waiting for.
Nikola Tesla Museum could have a brick with your name on it
After running a successful initial round of crowdfunding, The Oatmeal is now looking to put the finishing touches on its plans to build a Nikola Tesla Museum. To do so, it needs a bit more help from kind souls on the internet. Despite hitting the goal amount on Indiegogo a couple of years ago, and having since received an unexpected, hefty donation from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, additional money is needed to start the actual building process on the property, one that was bought with the $1.37 million originally raised. In an effort to make things interesting, this new campaign offers to give contributors engraved bricks in exchange for their hard-earned cash -- the more you donate, the bigger brick you're going to have at the museum. But hurry because, as The Oatmeal points out, the sooner you back the project, the better location your brick will get. Eventually, the idea is to build the Nikola Tesla Museum on the land where his final lab was located, in Shoreham, New York.
Crowdfunding Roundup: Unbreakable smart door locks and powerful purses
Each week, TUAW provides readers with an update on new or significant crowdfunded Apple-related projects in the news. While our policy is to not go into detail on items that haven't reached at least 80 percent of their funding goal, this update is designed to give readers a heads-up on projects they might find interesting enough to back. Being a fan of both home security and smartphone-controlled locks, I was very intrigued with this week's first entry. Haven is something a bit different for a lock, replacing the standard deadbolt with a wedge that is almost impossible to budge once it's locked. They show that about the only way you're going to get in through a door locked with Haven is with an axe ... and only after a lot of work. The project is 17 percent funded with a month to go, but I think this is worthy of support. Now, I can actually say that I have seen everything. Digitsole is a campaign (and Kickstarter Staff Pick) that brings the world of connected devices to your feet. It's a "connected insole", used to warm your feet, track your distance, and count how many calories you've burned. Digitsole is funded, currently at 154 percent of goal with over a month to go. Now for a couple of game projects. First up is Paradigm, billed as a surreal adventure game set in "post apocalyptic Eastern Europe with an ugly mutant protagonist and an evil sloth antagonist." Some of the backers will actually have their likeness included in the game, and there are other benefits if you put your wallet behind this project. It's currently at 172 percent funding with 11 days to go. Our other game is an awesome role-playing game called Star Traders 2. The team behind the project says "We've mingled inspirations from genre-defining series like Firefly and Battlestar Galactica, books like Dune, and games like Mass Effect, Pirates!, and Dwarf Fortress." The primary inspiration? The original Star Traders RPG. It's 69 percent funded with only 8 days to go. Come on, gamers! And now something for our more fashionable geekettes: Everpurse, a stylish purse with a charging dock built into it. Just slide your iPhone 5 or 6 (not sure it's big enough for the 6 Plus) into the charging pocket and you'll get up to 96 hours of juice. When the purse itself needs a charge, just drop it onto a tray for wireless charging. Unfortunately, Everpurse is only 6 percent funded with a month to go in the campaign. Step it up, ladies! I like seeing projects that are over goal and just about ready to launch. That's the case with Verve2, by inXus interactive out of Irvine, CA. Verve2 is billed as "LEGOs of the future" allowing you to "Create amazing projects by plugging the world around you to your computer or internet." It comes with a pile of sensors; force, touch, pushbutton, light, turn, motion, magnet, sound, and temperature. There's also a DIY sensor! It's perfect for students or anyone who wants to futz around with stuff. It's 301 percent funded with just 4 days to go. Last this week is another educational project, this one aimed at girls to get them interested in coding. Vidcode lets girls learn programming by letting them create video effects with code. The Kickstarter campaign will let the developers create more content for Vidcode users and deliver the first real product to schools. But this project needs your help, as it's only 43 percent funded with 26 days to go. Let's push it over the top! We'll be back next Thursday for another roundup of crowdfunded projects that you can support or ignore. Many thanks again to Hal Sherman for providing some tips about new and exciting projects, and if you're aware of any other crowdfunded Apple-related projects, be sure to let us know about them through the Tip Us button at the upper right of the TUAW home page for future listing on the site.
Indiegogo's pilot program lets successful projects keep raising money
When it comes to the wild and woolly crowdfunding space, it's not hard to look at Kickstarter as the Goliath to Indiegogo's David -- that's why the latter keeps trying to change up how young companies get the cash to build their products. First came Flexible Funding (which let project creators keep whatever money they've raised even if they didn't hit their goal), and now the company is launching a pilot program to keep those campaigns open indefinitely. That's right: if your crowdfunding project hit its initial milestone, you won't ever have to stop taking money from the people waving their wallets at you. In a way, this new funding model could turn Indiegogo into the store that Kickstarter never wanted to be. Sounds great for all those upstart artists and hardware hackers out there, no? It can be, but it could also mean questionable products (like the much-maligned Healbe GoBe and the Ritot projection watch) maintain a stream of funding they may not actually be worthy of. Only a handful of projects have been given the so-called Forever Funding treatment so far, including runaway successes like the Tens tinted sunglasses and this tiny tracking device, but this particular privilege should go live for everyone "in the coming months."
Crowdfunding Roundup: Nano edition
Each week, TUAW provides readers with an update on new or significant crowdfunded Apple-related projects in the news. While our policy is to not go into detail on items that haven't reached at least 80 percent of their funding goal, this update is designed to give readers a heads-up on projects they might find interesting enough to back. It's been an exciting week so far -- so exciting that we haven't been able to do a lot with gathering the crop of Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that have popped up in the last week. Today's list is going to be rather short as a result -- expect things to be back to normal next week. Our first entry this week accurately bills itself as "the smallest backup charger for iPhone." Oivo is a brilliant idea, a collapsible battery charger that you can pop a set of four readily-available AA batteries into for a quick hit of juice. The top and bottom halves of the charger magnetically couple together so you have a tiny square fob on your keychain. Pull them apart, drop in the batteries, and you're good to go. Oivo also works as an iPhone stand while you're charging. 39 percent funded with three weeks to go, I think Oivo is going to make it. For some people, the upcoming Watch from Apple is going to be way too large. For those people, we recommend that they back the MOTA SmartRing campaign on Indiegogo. Currently 44 percent funded with over three weeks to go, this is this first of these "intelligent ring" projects that looks like it may actually make it through funding. And hey, who doesn't want to have notification of a tweet coming in on a tiny ring on your finger? There are actually quite a few minimalist cases that are similar to our next entry, the Koala Case. This case is 27 percent funded with 17 days to go, and I'm not going to say much about it since I honestly think it's too similar to a number of cases already in production. And our final entry of the week is the Pocket Dock-It. Take an Apple charging brick and put a Lightning connector on top, and call it a Pocket Dock-It. It's certainly small, but your iPhone will hanging around wall sockets way too often. Don't expect to see this product in your local gadget store soon, as it's only at 3 percent funding with two weeks to go. And that's a wrap for this exciting week. We'll be back next Thursday for another roundup of crowdfunded projects that you can support or ignore. Many thanks again to Hal Sherman for providing some tips about new and exciting projects, and if you're aware of any other crowdfunded Apple-related projects, be sure to let us know about them through the Tip Us button at the upper right of the TUAW home page for future listing on the site.
PvP sandbox Life is Feudal hits Steam early access next week
Life is Feudal is one of several indie sandbox MMOs striving to become this generation's Ultima Online, and next week, you can actually play it... if you fork over a few bucks for early access, that is. The game unlocks on Steam on September 19th; existing alpha players will be able to claim their early alpha keys on Steam and partake in the smaller-scale, non-MMO test version of the game. Billing itself as a realistic medieval sandbox, Life is Feudal includes city construction and invasion, a freeform character building system, a single seamless world, terraforming, farming, crafting skills like cooking and alchemy, and full open PvP with looting. The developers maintain a document explaining how the game is similar to and different from other MMOs with such features, however. The game failed to reach its Indiegogo goals last year.
Crowdfunding Roundup: OpenHome Labs, Starfish, and Bleep
Each week, TUAW provides readers with an update on new or significant crowdfunded Apple-related projects in the news. While our policy is to not go into detail on items that haven't reached at least 80 percent of their funding goal, this update is designed to give readers a heads-up on projects they might find interesting enough to back. We start off this week with a fascinating announcement from Indiegogo, which announced a partnership yesterday with OpenHome Labs, "a program that helps connected home start-ups succeed by accelerating their development and go-go-market process." OpenHome Labs was developed by Icontrol Networks, a company that is going places in the connected home market. You may remember their Piper security cam and home automation hub from our review earlier this year. There are currently three Indiegogo campaigns running under the auspices of OpenHome Labs: Bttn, an internet-connected push button that triggers an action or chain of actions Reemo: a wrist-worn product providing gesture control of devices Zen: A new connected thermostat Kudos to Icontrol and Indiegogo for creating OpenHome Labs, and best of luck to current and future crowdfunding campaigns. Here's a funded project with a little over a day to go. Starfish is a weight-activated child seat sensor that connects to a smartphone to alert parents who may -- and it does happen occasionally to the best of parents -- leave their infants in the car. 111 percent funded with about 30 hours to go! And then there are the Kickstarter campaigns that fill us with an overwhelming feeling of deja vu. In this case, the ACE-1 UltraClean BioMass Cookstove reminded me of something... like the very popular BioLite camp stove. Uses available grass, sticks and twigs as fuel? Check. Generates electricity while cooking to power your devices? Check. Gives back by providing stoves for use in Africa? Check. The only thing the ACE-1 may not have in common with BioLite is funding. It's 6 percent funded with 45 days to go. If you've read the TUAW crowdfunding roundups for any period of time, you know that there are bazillions of campaigns seeking money to develop the perfect iPad stand. I've generally found mod tot them to be either too look-alike or too weird, but here's one that is absolutely stunning. It's called YOHANN, and it's the brainchild of two Swiss designers. It's 163 percent funded with three weeks to go. Here is another funded project on Indiegogo. The Bleep smart charging cable includes a built-in flash drive so whenever you plug in your iPhone. A lot of people must like this idea in addition to me; it's already 142 percent funded with 51 days to go. Everyone seems to want us to stop sitting down at our desks to work. Stand Stand lets you take a standing desk anywhere. Want to look like a total tool in your local Starbucks, standing up and working? Stand Stand's portable, so you can accomplish your wildest dreams. It's about half funded with 46 days to go, so it looks like you'll start seeing hipsters lugging these around soon. And we have another winner, and another project this week that really shows some amazing innovation. Mozbii is a stylus for kids that has a sensor built into it so it can pick up colors from the real world. It comes with a coloring book app, and hopefully when the campaign is successful the developer will come out with even more apps. Frankly, I think this capability might be useful for designers... adult designers. Mozbii is 136 percent funded with just over three weeks to go. You know what the world could use more of? Fitness trackers! Fitness trackers that you wear on your wrist! That's a really innovative idea that nobody has thought of, right? Now there's Jaha, a fitness band designed to locate and challenge other Jaha wearers in your vicinity. Of course there's an iPhone app that goes along with this all, so you can use the magic of GPS to track your walks and runs -- and nobody else does that. Sigh. Surprisingly, this campaign looks like it will be successful and bring yet another meh fitness band to the world. Help us, Obi-Wan iWatch -- you're our only hope. It's 77 percent funded with just less than three weeks left in the campaign. Today's world is full of nifty neat new products that are smartphone controlled. You can get air conditioners, slow cookers, and a ton of other products that can be remotely adjusted via apps. Table Air is an idea whose time has obviously not come -- a desktop air purifier with a controller app. It's currently standing on a tabletop in embarrassment of having only raised $1 of a $5,000 goal. But that's OK, Binky -- there are still 25 days during which clean air fanatics can vote with their dollars. Let's end this week on a high note. If you wear glasses or sunglasses, you know the frustration of not being able to remember where you left the damned things. Me? I probably lose two or three pairs of sunglasses a year. With LOOK, you'll have a small Bluetooth-equipped sticker that you can attach to those glasses as well as an app with which to search for them. I like this project, which just started yesterday. It's got a ways to go, though -- only 1 percent funded with 60 days to go. Please help a middle-aged man -- me -- to find his sunglasses. Back this campaign. And that, my friends, is another week's worth of the good, the not-so-good, and the downright stupid in the world of crowdfunding. We'll be back next Thursday for another roundup of crowdfunded projects that you can support or ignore. Many thanks again to Hal Sherman for providing some tips about new and exciting projects, and if you're aware of any other crowdfunded Apple-related projects, be sure to let us know about them through the Tip Us button at the upper right of the TUAW home page for future listing on the site.