Awesome Stuff: Flying Cars, Hover Bikes And Ultrasonic Levitation

from the float-away,-float-away... dept

For this week's awesome stuff post about interesting crowdfunding projects, we've got three campaigns that have to do with... leaving the ground behind in some form or another. I'm not sure any of them are practical, but let's not let reality get in the way of fun ideas.

• The OverDrive Flying Car Where's my flying car? That line has been repeated for decades, after the futuristic promises of the 1950s never really came to be. Every so often someone tries it, though, and the latest is The OverDrive -- a sports car that turns into a flying car. Well, in theory. At this point, it doesn't seem to be much beyond a plan and a remote controlled-scale model. It's kind of a moonshot idea and you'd have to believe in the guy behind it to bet on it -- especially since you're not actually buying much here, just supporting his vision. So far, it doesn't look like he's going to get anywhere near the $250,000 he's seeking, but dreamer's gotta dream.
• Hoverbike Okay, moving slightly down the "ambitiousness" scale, how about a Hoverbike that is kind of like a giant quadcopter drone... but that a person can (theoretically) ride. That's sort of the idea, though what these guys are really selling is the 1/3-scale model drone. In other words, it's really just a drone that they're selling, with the idea that one day they'd like to make a hoverbike version of it.
• Ultrasonic Levitation Moving way, way, way, way down the ambitiousness scale to something that's actually more plausible, there's the ultrasonic levitation device that will allow you to make tiny, little things float in the air. Kinda neat in a science-experimenty way. The guy behind it hopes that it will inspire people to build real hoverboards, but I wouldn't bet on it.

That's it for this week. Feel free to go outside without too much worry about flying cars and hoverbikes zooming around just yet...

Filed Under: awesome stuff, crowdfunding, drones, flying cars, hover bikes, ultrasonic levitation

Awesome Stuff: Getting Creative With Bags

from the searching-for-the-perfect-bag dept

We're back with another awesome stuff post of interesting crowdfunding projects. This week, we're looking at some different approaches to bags. There are a ton of bag/backpack products on Kickstarter these days, but these three stood out as interesting in taking different approaches.

• The Air Pakk The Air Pakk isn't just a backpack, but it's also an inflatable pillow/pad. Both the front and the back easily inflate to create a pillow on the go. Of course, some of the sample use cases seem somewhat impractical as you'd have to more or less empty out the bag itself to use, but if you don't carry around that much, it could be handy.
• The Hoboroll The Hoboroll is a pretty straightforward stuff sack, but with the potentially useful addition of compartments within the stuff sack, making it easier to keep your stuff organized and accessible, than in a straight up stuff sack.
• The Colfax Smart Pack I'm always on the lookout for interesting computer backpacks, but most of them don't seem to offer that much value and are too expensive. The Colfax design looks pretty nice and well thought out, though it's still pretty damn expensive. Not enough for me to move on from my trusty Swiss Gear bag that has served me well for years, but figured some folks might be interested.

As a bonus, we've got the "interesting branding choices" award going to the Douche Bag, which looks like a decent enough simple duffel bag/backpack combo, but not so sure about the naming strategy or the giant "Douche" printed on the side. Sure, sure, the guy claims it's a way of mocking how overpriced bags act as a "billboard" for their luxury brand name, but isn't the best way to fight back against that to make a bag without any brand name, rather than coming up with a juvenile new brand name to promote?

That's it for this week. Pack up your stuff and head out for the weekend.

Filed Under: awesome stuff, bags

Home Stretch For Supporting Our Net Neutrality Reporting

from the running-out-the-clock dept

Please support our net neutrality reporting today »
We're in the final days of our big crowd funding campaign for our net neutrality reporting. We're about 65% of the way there as I type this, which is amazing... but not yet enough to get us over the hurdle to actually get the funding -- or the matching funds from our matching donors, Namecheap and Twitch (and we may have another one to announce soon...).

I know that we live in an age where everyone's asking for money, and you have an infinite number of places where you can spend that money. Hell, every week, in this very spot, we put up three or four interesting and compelling crowdfunding campaigns that I know many of you end up supporting. But, hopefully you also recognize just how important all of this net neutrality business really is to the future of the internet you love. And you also realize how complex this topic is -- partly on purpose by the very broadband providers and bureaucrats who are trying to confuse everyone to get what they want. To really fight back, we need to be out there digging for the truth, looking at what people are saying and what it really means -- so that we can report back to you and everyone else, so that we're informed and can really take part in this process.

And we can't do that without your help.

As I mentioned in the past, our reporting on SOPA was toxic to many advertisers. On the advertising side of things, the blog went from profitable to unprofitable as a result of the SOPA fight -- even as our traffic doubled. Our revenue from advertising was cut by more than 50%. And the net neutrality fight is the same way for many as well. I'm not complaining about it, because we knew that was a risk of standing up for what we believe in, and we wouldn't change a thing. But, because of that I need to ask directly for your help today. If we can reach this goal, it will allow us to do a variety of things, including bringing in some additional writers and guests, spending more time digging through various FCC filings and other paperwork for important details (rather than spending time trying to find advertisers). It will hopefully give us the time to conduct interviews with a variety of key players in the fight, including bringing them to the blog to answer you r questions. By digging in, we can bring you details about how lobbyists are funneling money to minority groups to get them to speak out against their own best interests. We can discuss how the broadband players claim to be so against Title II, but beg to be classified under Title II when it gives them tax breaks and subsidies.

We have a lot more of those kinds of reports we've wanted to do. In the last week, I, personally, have dug out over a dozen very questionable filings to the FCC from individuals parroting telco talking points in a curious way. And I've reached out to a few of those writers to find out who they are and why they're saying what they're saying. There's an interesting story there, but I simply haven't had the time to work on it. If we can reach our goal, it'll free us up to do a lot more, and to dig a lot deeper. But we need your help.

In the sixteen years of doing Techdirt, we've offered you a few ways that you can support us, but we've never made a strong push or given a deadline. This time, I'm asking you to support our campaign, to tell your friends and family, and to share with them just how important true independent reporting on the net neutrality fight is going to be to the future of the internet.

Or, you know, you can give your money to the dude doing a potato salad Kickstarter campaign. But, in the future, which one do you think is going to be more important?

Please support our net neutrality reporting today »

Filed Under: awesome stuff, crowdfunding, net neutrality, techdirt
Companies: techdirt

Awesome Stuff: Want To Make Sure The Internet Stays Open And Free For Innovation?

from the tooting-our-own-horn-a-bit dept

Each week, we post an "awesome stuff" post that looks at a few interesting (and sometimes not so interesting) crowdfunding projects. This week, however, we're doing our own. On Monday, we launched a crowdfunding campaign to support our coverage of net neutrality. The idea is to let us put more resources towards really digging into every aspect of this battle. We're a very small team trying to cover a variety of subjects, and we work quite hard at it, but if we can dedicate greater efforts towards this important debate, we're hoping to really dig deep and look at what's really happening -- beyond just the basic headlines of what's out there.

TL;DR: Support our net neutrality coverage
and double your impact right now! »
We were able to do that with the SOPA/PIPA fight, but as I mentioned in our last post, doing so meant that we lost big on the advertising side. While that didn't stop us, we'd rather not have to worry about that, but rather just focus on just getting you the best reporting we can. While we've written hundreds of stories on net neutrality, here are a few memorable ones to highlight the kinds of things we want to be able to keep bringing you:

• How telco astroturfers tried to bring down review of a book about net neutrality
• What inefficient airline boarding processes have to do with net neutrality
• Asking if Comcast CEO Brian Roberts would pay Netflix's bandwidth bill, after he claimed it was "free."
• Verizon lobbyists pretending that "blind, deaf and disabled people" are supportive of an internet fast and slow lane
• Looking at whether or not broadband providers are violating FTC rules by lying about what they're delivering to customers
• Discussing how Verizon loves to be classified under Title II in order to get subsidies and tax breaks, but pretends it would be deathly if it were expanded

As you can see, we really try to dig deeper, past the straight up headlines to see what else is going on. We can do a lot more of that, but we need to reach our funding goal. We're off to an amazing start so far, with it getting well over a third of the way funded in less than a week. But there's still a long way to go, and it needs your help. Please, if you can, look at supporting this project, and sharing it with your friends.

Once again, if you donate now, there are matching funds that we get from a group of donors, meaning that every dollar you give creates twice as much impact. Please consider supporting this effort. We won't let you down.

Support our net neutrality coverage
and double your impact right now! »

Filed Under: awesome stuff, crowdfunding, innovation, net neutrality

Awesome Stuff: Drones! Illegal Drone Uses! And Drone Haters!

from the drones! dept

Given that we wrote this week about the FAA saying that basically any use of a drone for money is illegal, we figured that for this week's awesome stuff we'd focus on some projects around drones -- some of which may actually be illegal under the FAA's ridiculous interpretation.

• HEXO: Autonomous Aerial Camera First up, we've got the HEXO, an autonomous aerial camera. It's a drone that you can attach a GoPro to (some packages include the GoPro) with some software that you can use to let the drone know who/what to follow, and the drone will do exactly that. It's designed very much with aerial imagery of sporting events in mind. The examples in the video above are... amazing. Makes me want to do more sporting activities that I'd want to film just to use this kind of thing.
• Airdog: Auto-follow Drone for GoPro Okay, this one is very similar to the HEXO above -- a drone system for automatically filming action sports from above with a GoPro. In fact, in some areas the similarities are striking. They're both built by companies based in Palo Alto, California. They both launched on Kickstarter on the same day, and they're both built by companies made up of action sports folks who wanted to have better systems to film themselves. It looks like the AirDog is a little different in that, rather than autonomously following you via the software, the AirDog requires a "leash" that you strap to your wrist, so it knows where to film. The AirDog also looks a little bit more expensive, and, frankly the sample shots in the video aren't nearly as impressive as those in the HEXO video, though that may have more to do with filmmaking technique than the devices in question. Either way, two options for very similar offerings -- and using either of them for commercial uses will piss off the FAA.
• View from Nova Scotia -- an aerial drone film A filmmaker wants to make a film about Nova Scotia, filmed entirely by drones. The project is just about over and has almost no backing, so it's not going to get funded. Also, it's in Canada, so the FAA rules don't directly apply to it, but if this were in the US, the project itself would almost certainly go against the FAA rules, for being a "commercial" offering using drones. That seems fairly ridiculous for a variety of reasons.
• Personal Drone Detection System Okay, finally a project that the FAA might like. Consider this as the anti-drone project if you, like the FAA, look at the above stories and freak out. Some folks who don't like drones have built some "drone detection systems" to let you spot drones flying around you. Honestly, given the quality of the video and the prototypes shown, this seems like a fairly amateurish project. The system also doesn't really do anything other than alert you if a drone is entering the "grid" that you set up. Seems like a perfect solution for people overly sensitive to drones. Perhaps the FAA will order a few dozen.

That's it for this week. Have fun and try not to piss off the FAA this weekend.

Filed Under: awesome stuff, drone detectors, drones

Awesome Stuff: Crowdfunding To Get Money Out Of Politics... Now With Steve Wozniak!

from the mayday! dept

Two weeks ago, we took a slight detour from our usual Awesome Stuff fare to talk about Larry Lessig's new crowdfunding project, MAYDAY.US, which aims to start a serious effort to significantly reduce the influence of money in politics. This week we're highlighting MAYDAY.US again, since it just received a major boost in the form of a video endorsement from Steve Wozniak:

The project already completed its first phase, raising $1-million and securing another million in matching funds, and now it's partway through the second, which has a goal of $5-million (and another $5-million to match). With two weeks left to go, it's got some distance to make up, so now is the time to use your money to fight back against the corrosive influence of money in politics. It could be awesome.

Filed Under: awesome stuff, larry lessig, mayday, mayday citizens superpac, mayday superpac, money in politics, steve wozniak

Awesome Stuff: Not Quite A Smart Watch

from the but-not-not-a-smart-watch-either dept

There are now tons of smart watches on the market, many from smaller players, but the big guys are increasingly moving into the market as well. While many are still not convinced of the smart watch concept, as a happy Pebble owner, I can say that it really does change my relationship with my phone (i.e., I use the phone a lot less, and am better able to stay informed on important things, without having to constantly pull out my phone). For me it's been pretty powerful. That said, for this week's awesome stuff, we're looking at three crowdfunding projects for things that aren't quite smart watches, but might interest some people who are curious about smart watches, but haven't quite made the leap yet.

• The Sim
  
  First up, we have the Sim. Rather than a smart watch, its wrist strap has three NFC chips built in, which can be programmed to trigger functionality on your phone. In many ways this is a lot closer to projects like the Pressy or the Dimple.io that enable outside forces to power your smartphone to do simple tasks like take a photo or open a particular app.
• The Glance
  
  Next up, we have the Glance, which is a little device that you stick inside your regular watch wristband, which acts just like a typical smart watch. In other words, if you like the notification features of a smart watch like the Pebble, but hate the actual look of smart watches, you can keep using your own, and just slide this little device into the wrist band. It's a "smart accessory" to a watch to make it like a smart watch.
• The Modilillian Smart Strap
  
  Finally, we have the Modillian Smart Strap, which is very similar in concept to the Glance above, except rather than being a device that you slip into any watchband, this is a watchband itself that you can attach to basically any standard watch, again, allowing you to turn a more typically designed watch into a smart watch-like setup with certain notification powers.

That's it for this week...

Filed Under: awesome stuff, nfc, smart watch, smartwatch

Awesome Stuff: Crowdfund Our Way To Reducing The Influence Of Money In Politics

from the a-different-sort-of-crowdfunding-campaign dept

Okay, so each week for our awesome stuff post about crowdfunding projects, we look at a variety of interesting projects for weird, funky, innovative and interesting products that are being offered on platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. This week is going to be a bit different. We're just going to point people to a single project: Larry Lessig's MAYDAY.US. And, yes, we already wrote about this at the beginning of May when the first phase launched, and again when it hit the $1 million goal -- and then secured the second million in matching funds. However, the project has now moved into phase two, where the goal is to raise (and match) $5 million, instead of just $1 million. Already it's around half a million dollars, so there's a long way to go, but it's a good start. And, once again, the goal here is to raise this total of $12 million ($1 million + $1 million match in May, and then $5 million + $5 million match in June) as a test for a much larger effort. I've seen too many overly cynical folks say "$12 million isn't enough to change politics." And you're right. But that's not the goal. This is $12 million to be used in specific races as a proof of concept for a much larger moonshot. But to make that happen, this campaign needs to get to $5 million by the end of June. If that happens, it will truly fit into the category of "awesome stuff."

Filed Under: awesome stuff, crowdfunding, larry lessig, mayday, mayday citizens superpac, mayone, money in politics

Awesome Stuff: Alternative Energy

from the solar-freaking-roadways dept

For this week's Awesome Stuff post, we've got three separate projects that have something to do with alternative energy -- some more ambitious and nutty than others.

• First up, we've got Trinity - The Portable Wind Turbine Power Station. Usually, when people think of personal alternative energy sources, solar is the first thought. However, these guys have built what appears to be a relatively small wind turbine power station. They describe it as portable, though that may depend on your definition of portability. If you have a big bag it'll work, but it's not something you'd slip in your pocket. Oh yeah, also, you need wind. Of course, since it also has a fairly massive 30,000 mAh battery, in many cases, it may act more as just a typical portable battery rather than a wind turbine. But, still, how often do you get to say you've got a wind turbine to charge your phone? Wind freaking turbine. This project is over 150% funded... (up around $75,000 on a $50,000 target) and it's ending in just a few hours, so if you want one of the original batch, jump in now. It'll cost you $279 (at the currently available "early bird" level) which is certainly pricey if it were just the battery. But, if you're looking for a personal wind turbine, I'm not sure you'll do much better -- well, unless you want to build your own.
• Okay, moving a bit more into more traditional alternative energy, there's the SPOR Solar Battery charger. Yes, portable solar chargers aren't particularly new, but this one seems nice and compact. The creators of this project point out that they were going for a Goldilocks-level solution -- something in between the chargers that are too big and bulky and the useless keychain-sized ones. This one is looking for the sweet spot. This is already more than 1/4 funded (goal of $100,000) with a month to go, suggesting it's fairly likely to meet its goal. As I type this there are still some early birds left at $40, but after that the price goes up to $50.
• If we're going to talk solar, why not go big. Super big. Crazy, ridiculous big. You may have heard about this project, because it's gotten some press, but some big dreamers are working on a project to build solar freaking roadways. If you replaced the roads with solar power, you'd be able to generate quite a lot of power -- as well as making the roads much smarter, including variable road lines, automatically melting snow and ice, and even analyzing and treating stormwater for pollution. It's a crazy ambitious goal, but quite cool too. As they repeat in their pitch, it's solar freaking roadways. And they've actually already received two rounds of funding from the US Federal Highway Administration, and a variety of other grants and prizes, including being chosen by Google as one of their "Moonshots." Obviously, they're not looking to Indiegogo crowdfunding for everything they need, but they are looking for more support to bring the project closer to reality. And they're getting it. With three weeks left, they've already raised about $1.7 million, well over the initial $1 million goal.

That's it for this week. Go out and enjoy some sun and wind.

Filed Under: alternative energy, awesome stuff, solar power, wind turbines