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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.
PQI Power Drive merges power bank, card reader and wireless access point into one
After showing off its USB OTG accessories and NFC flash drive, PQI decided to tease us with its unannounced Power Drive that was sat quietly in a corner at Computex. Much like the Air Pen launched last November, this upcoming device acts as a portable wireless access point with storage expansion, meaning you can share an RJ45 network connection and your files over WiFi. But what's new is that not only is the RJ45 port collapsible to reduce device thickness, there's now also a standard SD card slot in addition to the old microSD slot. Better yet, as the name suggests, the Power Drive can also be used as a USB power bank to charge up other devices, making this PQI's most versatile WiFi product yet. Alas, details are light on the specs, so stay tuned for its announcement at some point in Q4 this year. %Gallery-190769%
iBuyPower intros Chimera 4 line, looks to set WoW ablaze
In need of a new liquid cooled gaming tower to help you incinerate those pesky adversaries? Perhaps you're just a fan of the fire motif? Either way, iBuyPower has introduced its new batch of fire starters: the Chimera 4 line. Take your pick of four fully loaded gaming machines, each built to suit your needs. The entire fleet sports a 120mm liquid cooling system, a Level 1 PowerDrive for overclocking and a 64GB ADATA SSD S596 Turbo. But if you're really serious about that Battlefield 3 habit, you'll splurge for the Chimera 4-V1 that houses a Intel Core i7, 8GB of RAM, an 800w power supply and an AMD Radeon 6950 2GB graphics card. The aforementioned beast will set you back $1659, while the more casual gamer can pick up less expensive models -- based on level of commitment, of course. For a closer look, take a peek at the gallery below before adding one to your Christmas list. %Gallery-139696%
PhotoFast's PowerDrive-LSI PCIe SSD screams past the competition at 1400MB a second
Usually we find overwrought product names, ostentatious paintjobs, and flame decals tacky, but all's forgiven with this PCI Express 2.0 SSD. CompactFlash stalwart PhotoFast has unveiled its all-new PowerDrive, which claims it can read your mind data at 1.4GBps and write it at an even faster 1.5GBps. That's the rough equivalent of reading two full CDs' content every second! Need we say more? The PowerDrive's speed puts the stinking fast Fusion-io ioXtreme to shame, humbles PhotoFast's own 1GBps G-Monster, and matches OCZ's otherworldly Z-Drive. The supported OS list includes a nice selection of Linux flavors as well, and sizes stretch from 240GB up to 960GB. Pricing? One word: unaffordable.
