Items tagged with KickStarter
A company called AIO Robotics announced that it will be launching a Kickstarter campaign on September 4th to raise money for a 3D printer that also offers 3D “copying” (i.e., 3D scanning), and 3D faxing. (Yes, 3D faxing, as in you could “fax” someone a 3D file that would automatically print on their 3D printer. The use case on that seems quite narrow, although we suppose that if it’s perfected, it could have some benefit over time.) The printer may be given the name “Zeus”. More notable features of this prototype include that it will run on its own ARM-based onboard computer that you can navigate with a 7-inch touchscreen. Thus, it wouldn’t need...
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When the Pebble smartwatch hit Kickstarter looking to raise $100,000, nobody could have guessed that it would annihilate crowdfunding records and end up generating $10,266,845 in pledges. It’s far less surprising to see Canonical’s Ubuntu Edge superphone--a smartphone with tantalizing features--rack up the dollars in crowdfunding support on Indiegogo, and in fact the Edge has beaten Pebble’s record, according to Canonical. At the time of this writing, the Ubuntu Edge smartphone campaign has generated $10,485,825--with 6 days to go. That’s a staggering amount of money, to be sure, and the fact that it’s all crowdsourced is all the more impressive. Still, there’s...
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Kickstarter has quickly become the go-to place for new gadgetry; why waste effort and energy trying to convince a company to cough up funding for an unproven concept, when you can just ask the world to believe in your idea? KEEO is yet another Kickstarter concept that could turn out quite nicely, deemed the world's first keyholder with an associated app for iPhone and Android. Basically, it's the world's first keyholder that lets you select a key with a push of a button, and it's designed from the ground-up to work in concert with a smartphone. It's Bluetooth-enabled as well, and the smartphone app enables you to locate it at any time. The company still needs well over $100,000 to make it to...
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If you never picked up one of those iconic “Choose Your Own Adventure” book when you were a kid, your childhood was not complete. The cleverly-written adventure books let you, the reader, decide what would happen next. If you wanted X to happen, you’d turn to page 23; if you wanted to Y, you’d turn to page 89, and so on. (We always kept a finger in the last page we jumped from in case we didn’t like where the story went.) Chooseco, the company behind the CYOA, is back and working to release “Choose ‘Toons”, or animated choose-your-own-adventure stories, on tablets. The team is looking to raise $130,000 on Kickstarter. Choose 'Toon starring you and...
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Developer Rei Kagetsuki is spearheading a Kickstarter campaign to fund the creation of animated PNG (APNG) tools with the ultimate goal of replacing animated GIFs (pronounced "jif," in case you're wondering) as the de facto standard for moving images. With 28 days to go, he's already more than halfway to his $5,000 goal courtesy of about a dozen backers. According to Kagetsuki, APNG could have been a standard more than a decade ago, but the reason the web at large still primarily uses animated GIFs is because of the lack of available tools for the former. "Animated PNG, a high quality animated image format complete with full alpha channel and graceful degradation has been available and usable...
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OUYA was a rousing success on Kickstarter, and in a very short time, the project developed into an actual commercial offering with a real product on store shelves and a host of developers working on games for the $99 gaming console. OUYA even raised enough money to fund a million-dollar game-seeding award. However, not everyone was happy, a fact that OUYA CEO Julie Uhrman has acknowledged in a letter to Kickstarter backers in which she wrote, “It wasn't OK that some of you-our most loyal supporters-didn't get your OUYA until after it was on store shelves. Others had an issue with our still-new customer service.” Other didn’t receive controllers they ordered. In order to...
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When the folks behind Fuel3D say they have a 3D camera scanner, they’re not talking about a simple stereoscopic device; rather the Fuel3D is a “fully 3D surface scanner consisting of a large number of physical and color measurements” including geometric stereo and photometric stereo data, which it then combines to create the image. The kicker is that the device—which kind of resembles a Roomba--costs under $1,000, and it works just like a point-and-shoot camera. You simply attach a tag called a target to the person or object you want to scan and snap the picture. Then, you can work with the image and export it in a variety of formats. Check out our 3D Printer...
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Wearable computing is increasingly becoming something that makes sense for average users, and here’s another reason to take the plunge: the NFC ring. Simply put, the ring is equipped with two NFC transmitters or “inlays”--one for public use and a secure one for private use--and it allows to wearer to perform actions such as unlocking a phone or sharing WiFi information. NFC ring maker John McLear also suggests use cases such as unlocking the door of your house, sharing links to websites or photos, and sharing contact information (bringing heightened importance to the handshake), and even launch apps on a phone. The device is simply constructed out of titanium and steel and consists...
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What a difference a year makes. Early last July, OUYA didn’t exist; fast forward through an astonishing Kickstarter campaign, successful hardware and software development, another round of funding, and a retail launch, and OUYA has suddenly evolved from merely a cool idea for an Android-based console to a highly sought-after product that sold out at online retail outlets. Suddenly, the OUYA gang has a success on its hands and is already in the position to be a patron instead of a supplicant. OUYA founder Julie Uhrman wrote in a blog post that OUYA is launching the “Free the Games Fund”, a program wherein it will support game developers by matching the funds they raise on Kickstarter...
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Jim Walls and Robert Lindsley, both formerly of Sierra Games where they helped birth Police Quest, are returning to the well to create a new police adventure game called Precinct. The team is raising funds on Kickstarter to finance the project. Set in Fraser Canyon, California, Precinct will offer “real life” police situations such as shootouts, car chases, arrests, and so on, as officer Maxwell Jones moves up the ranks to fight corruption in the town. The first person-perspective game will have choose-your-own-adventure type actions, but it will also feature action gameplay, such as hand-to-hand combat and investigations. Gameplay screenshot Gameplay concept art There’s a demo...
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It hasn’t been all that long since the Pebble smartwatch took Kickstarter by storm, whipping up a cool $10 million in funds, but the device appears poised for genuine success. In a blog post, Pebble’s Eric Migicovsky dished out some numbers surrounding the smartwatch that bode well for its success. Pre orders for the Pebble smartwatch have reached 275,000, between Kickstarter orders as well as those taken directly from the company’s website and Best Buy stores. The company has already sent out some 93,000 Pebbles around the world, and Pebble owners have downloaded 1 million watchapps for the device. There are 29 Pebble employees, and Eric Migicovsky says they’re still...
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In the latest Kickstarter update sent out by Replay Games to backers of Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded, it was revealed that Larry creator Al Lowe will be participating in another Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) session on Saturday, July 6th (that's today!) at 1:00 PM Eastern (10:00 AM Pacific for you folks living on the west coast). He'll discuss the making of Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded as well as the whole Kickstarter experience. Al Lowe needs no introduction among old school adventure gamers, who know him well as the original creator of Larry Laffer back when Sierra was owned by Ken and Roberta Williams. We won't get into the unfortunate series of events that led to Sierra changing hands, but suffice...
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There is still a market for adventure games. Industry veteran and founder of Double Fine games Tim Schafer proved it when he opened a Kickstarter campaign for a then-untitled adventure game (now called Broken Age) seeking a modest $400,000 in funding. Fans of Schafer's resume (The Secret of Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, and many more) flocked to the project and forked over $1 million in just the first day. When the campaign concluded, Schafer had raised over $3.3 million in funding from over 87,000 backers, thus ensuring the game would be made and that Double Fine wouldn't have to seek out a publisher. That was nearly a year and four months...
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Its name alone inspires some goofy thoughts (n00brella, anyone?), but this latest umbrella Kickstarter project does seem to have some potential. We'd have to imagine that many don't like holding onto an umbrella when in the rain - especially when it's windy and actually becomes a workout. It's just not that comfortable. That's where Nubrella comes in... it's an umbrella for those who can't or don't want to hold onto an umbrella while walking, but still need one. The premise is sound enough, but the implementation can help us see how humorous the product actually is - or you know, at least until they become popular enough that no one thinks different any longer. Nubrella is worn like a backpack,...
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