Because I know you all follow my posts like a kid following an ice cream truck, you’ll probably remember my review of the AL13 aluminum iPhone case by designed by m. Now, designed by m is back, funding on Kickstarter with its second version of the AL13. Designed by m boasts that the AL13 v2 will have ZERO signal loss.
Hotdog Yoga is a spinoff from our friends at Skooba Design, and they have turned to Kickstarter to help fund their latest project. The Yogatote is “designed to be more practical and versatile than any standard mat bag”. A full-featured yoga bag with a built-in mat carrier, the bag offers tons of organization without looking like it.
I recently built a home bar; between glass wear, jiggers, shakers and openers, there are tons of gadgets I could fill my drawers with, but a recent Kickstarter campaign has introduced an item I have never seen. Brew Cutlery combines stainless steel eating utensils with a bottle opener. A $20 Kickstarter contribution will let you eat, drink and be merry!
Kerry Woo, past Gear Diary writer and current street photographer extraordinaire, has just launched his first Kickstarter project — the aptly named “Take the Long Way Home”. His goal is to “document a rich pictorial history of America’s back roads, [and] upload the images online with professional printing and direct mailing to you” while driving cross-country from Seattle to Nashville. And now, in my words: Kerry is someone who I have never met in person, but over the ten or so years that we have been communicating online, he has become a dear friend. Kerry has always had a quirky…
Yes Man Watches has raised over $8,000, over 50% of its goal in the first day of Kickstarter funding. The neat thing about these watches is the innovative latch design that gives you tons of fitting options and doesn’t poke holes in the beautiful leather. The watch face design is clean as well. Check out their Kickstarter campaign to pledge.
The golf bag is a standard part of any golfer’s arsenal, but while there are loads of models they all serve the same basic purposes the same basic way. Now Gbag has launched on IndieGoGo and looks to change the way we think of the golf bag for good, using magnets and ultralight materials and a modular design! The golf bag is a standard part of any golfer’s arsenal, but while there are loads of models they all serve the same basic purposes the same basic way. Now Gbag has launched on IndieGoGo and looks to change the way we…
Traditional publishing is terrified of the rise of ebooks from Amazon, but it’s not just ebooks that threaten the publishing world. Crowdfunding is useful and disruptive for more than just gadgets, and can be used to fund books as well. In fact, John Bigg’s novel Mytro is being funded successfully via IndieGoGo!
Have you ever wondered what your dog was thinking? We would love to know what our pets want and if we could better take care of them. That’s the promise of No More Woof, a prototype from the Nordic Society for Invention and Discovery in Sweden, which discovered a way to sample and ‘translate’ EEG patterns into common speech elements. Using a Raspberry PI computer along with EEG electrodes to capture, analyze and report changes in brain activity with commonly associated human speech: No More Woof is a small gadget that uses the latest technology in micro computing and EEG…
There are two kinds of garages out there: the garages where cars live while shelves of stuff loom over them ominously, and the garages where the idea of fitting a car amongst all the stuff stored there is laughable. No matter which garage you have, myLIFTER is a Kickstarter project designed to organize your garage and control it from your phone!
I debated and debated (and debated!) about whether or not I should back the “World’s first roast-grind-brew coffee machine” by Bonavarde Coffee Changers. In the end, even though it seemed unlikely and possibly too good to be true, and even though there were plenty of good reasons not to,”but what if it works?” won out, and I backed. Bonaverde more than met their initial goal of $135,000; they smashed it with over $681K in backing money, and they added several stretch goals along the way. This may turn out to be a very expensive piece of junk, or it might…
One of the things I have learned extremely quickly as a new parent is that some kid’s accessories and toys come with crazy gimmicks. They’re either smartphone-connected for no good reason, overpriced, or they’ll make something simple overly complicated, all in an effort to part parents from money. The Toymail project on Kickstarter appears to nail the trifecta!
When I heard about the Dragon Innovation project called ‘The Fiesta Five’, I had an immediate thought: one of my sons loves fist-bumps and high fives, the other does not. When he finally does give his brother a high-five, there is a celebration … and I could just picture him using one of these to make it truly special.
The McDonald Observatory is a Texas landmark that evokes emotion in all who see it. To me, the bright white telescope domes nestled in the Davis Mountains represent inspiration, education, and — perhaps most importantly — exploration. An Indigogo campaign has been launched to celebrate the Observatory’s 75th anniversary; here is how you can be a part of it all.
We’ve seen a host of different app-enabled hardware for the iPhone. There’s been everything from smart scales to smart radar detectors. Now there’s even an app-enabled battery case for the iPhone 5 and iPhone 5S. They are working to fund the project on Kickstarter, so if this is something that sounds interesting to you, read on.
The original Padcaster demonstrated once again that dismissing the iPad as a media creation device is wrong-headed – it allowed iPad owners to attach their tablet to a tripod and then use lights, lenses, external microphones and more. Now they have launched a new Kickstarter to help fund the creation of an iPad Mini version! Why are they seeking funding now? Well, they only introduced the Padcaster in April and started selling it in June so it is just starting to get rolling through production. As they note: “The Original Padcaster is already in production, having been funded almost entirely…
The Ballads of Reemus was a fun adventure game that evoked the classic LucasArts era of gaming. It was fun and funny with plenty to do and discover. Now Reemus is back for another adventure – well, he will be if you back him on Kickstarter! Develop Zeebarf plans to use funding to bring the game out in June 2014. Here is a snip of what the game is all about: A 2D, hand drawn, comedy-fantasy point and click adventure game in the vein of such classics as “Day of the Tentacle” & “Monkey Island” for PC/Mac/Linux. With future ports…
Sites like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo are great places for developers to directly appeal to consumers with their ideas and involvement for product design and manufacturing. It is great to complete (‘Kick-finish’) something like a video. There are risks of being late, not living up to promises, or never releasing. But what if the funding was just that – for funding? This past week I got an email forwarded to me containing a link to a video and a ‘project’ on a crowdfunding site (neither of which I’ll share). The project used as a basis of enticement a list of past…
Phonebloks is a conceptual solution to a very real problem. Electronic waste is a big concern, as today’s electronics are not built to last. Phonebloks is a concept that uses interchangeable “bloks” that can be switched out when it either fails or you’re in the mood for an upgrade. But can this seemingly simple idea really be produced? With this design, you can theoretically just swap in and out any number of components from the camera, processor, gyroscope, memory, WiFi, even the screen and replace them wherever you’d like on the base. Sounds like an incredibly simple way to fully…
The folks at Juicies may have come up with a way to improve upon Apple’s lightening cables as well as the typical Micro USB cable. The JUICIES+ cable is made of anodized aluminum, wrapped in a tangle-free woven cable, and is a foot longer than the typical power cables. A $20 Kickstarter pledge lands you one power cable of the future. Project Title: JUICIES+ for iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phones Status: Currently Funding Closing Date for Funding: 11/1/13 URL of the Project: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/laudowicz/juicies-for-iphone-android-blackberry-and-windows Product Overview: JUICIES+ incorporate a few great cable designs that I’ve been looking for in a…
Do you use a treadmill or elliptical system for exercise? Do you read while on it? If so, you’ve probably encountered eye-strain as you were moving and trying to focus on the stationary e-device text. Run-n-Read from Weartrons seeks crowdsource funding to deal with this issue by tracking motion and repositioning text to keep it stable in your visual field. Run-n-Read uses a combination of hardware and software to stabilize text. The hardware tracks your head motion relative to the screen and text, and the software runs on your iOS or Android device to shift the text position in real…
Once again, I have cool news about Larian Studios, the creators of one of my all-time favorite games — Divine Divinity. In early April I talked about the Divinity: Original Sin Kickstarter, and a couple of weeks later noted the addition of a tier that also gave you a digital copy of Larian’s RTS (real-time strategy) game Divinity Dragon Commander. Well, today is the release date for Divinity Dragon Commander, and Larian Studios has published a launch trailer. Rather than some bland cinematic, this trailer actually shows you the purpose of different elements of the game, how you play and…