Awesome Stuff: Making Travel Better

from the or-just-more-bizarre dept

I've been trying to travel less often these days, but I still do way too much of it. Over the past few years, though, I've become more and more obsessed with perfecting my "travel gear" so that I can do things conveniently on the go. This week's awesome stuff post covers three new crowdfunding projects that attempt (some better than others) to create products for travelers that... are quite different than what's come before. Whether or not you agree that any of these are particularly useful, they're the kinds of ideas that will certainly surprise people.

• First up is the Aero-Tray -- a foldup stand mainly for laptops to actually make it easier/more convenient to work on airplanes. I'm often my most productive on airplanes, where I can just sit and focus for hours on end, but the cramped quarters and the fear of the person in front of you pushing their seat back (ugh!) can be quite a pain. The Aero-Tray looks like a pretty cool and unique way of trying to tackle that, while also making your "workspace" on a plane more usable. Of course, it doesn't just have to be for airplanes either. I see this as a possible replacement for the current travel laptop stand that I travel with already. They're also promoting this as a way to take a nap, though that looks kind of goofy. (Disclaimer: I've already backed this project myself, even though I'm a bit nervous about the weight and size of the thing -- but the possibility of being more productive on planes is really tempting). The project was seeking $23,667 (I have no idea why they chose such an odd number), and passed that relatively quickly. It's a bit over $30,000 with less than a week to go.
• Speaking of looking goofy during naps, last year, the really wacky "ostrich pillow" which let you stick your head into a giant pillow-like... thing in order to sleep damn well anywhere you please (if you can get over the embarrassment factor) got a ridiculous amount of attention, and ended up raising about $200,000 on Kickstarter. It looks like a gag gift, but apparently it's real. Either way, the folks behind it have now created the Ostrich Pillow Light. Honestly, if there had never been an Ostrich Pillow in the first place, I think most people would think the Ostrich Pillow Light looks insanely goofy. But, when you compare the two, the new Light one looks way less goofy. Thank goodness for relative goofiness. (Disclaimer: I wouldn't want to be caught dead in one of these, no matter how comfy they might be). Once again, like last year's project, there appears to be a fair amount of demand for this offering. They had a goal of £25,000 and shot past it. As I write this, it's around £60,000, with more than two weeks to go.
• Finally, the folks at Triposo, who make travel apps for mobile phones are offering a wacky travel belt. Basically, it's a belt that has little buzzers in four equally spaced places around the belt. You program into your mobile app where it is you want to go... and as you walk around some new city, it'll buzz you to tell you which way to go -- so you don't (1) look like a lost tourist and (2) miss all the sights while staring into the little map on your phone trying to figure out where to go. Conceptually, that's kind of neat. I'm one of those people who hates looking like a tourist somewhere, and almost always tries to memorize maps before heading out, rather than have to stand around looking lost (sometimes this works... sometimes... it doesn't). Still, the idea of a belt that guides you around still seems a bit far out there for me. (Disclaimer: I actually don't have a disclaimer on this one, but since I did one on the other two items, I felt the need to say something). These guys are trying to get $10,000, and only have about $3,000 as of this writing, with about two and a half weeks to go. That's right on the edge in terms of likely hitting the goal. Wouldn't surprise me either way. Funky product, but might be a really niche market.

That's all for this week. Safe travels.

Filed Under: awesome stuff, travel

Awesome Stuff: Hacking Your Car

from the about-time dept

While there certainly have been improvements in car technology over the past few years, the culture of "hacking" your car still hasn't become as popular as you might expect. We've been seeing a few recent attempts to let people get access to their own car's data, which hopefully will begin to open up this market, as new apps and services let you do a lot more with your car, in part just by accessing and understanding more information. A few months back we wrote about the Automatic Link device to get useful information out of your car's dataport and into your smartphone -- and this week's awesome stuff post is about two similar crowdfunding projects that focus on making the dataport useful to car owners.

• First up is the AutoAide from Park.IT. It does the basic stuff that you'd expect -- such as telling you what the various engine warning lights are referring to, and monitoring things like the car battery's health. It also claims to improve the GPS functionality of your phone, though it's not entirely clear how necessary that really is. The key focus, though, is for parking. As its name suggests, Park.IT already has an app that helps you find parking and also avoid parking tickets. And, not surprisingly, that's built into AutoAide. If a lot of people are using AutoAide and Park.IT (maybe a big stretch), it can even alert you when someone is leaving their parking spot. They're aiming for $50,000, but so far still have less than 10% of that with less than three weeks to go. It seems unlikely that they'll hit their goal this time around. To be honest, the parking app is still the cool feature here, and you don't really need the dataport device to make that work. It almost feels like these guys might want to spend their time partnering up with other providers of dataport devices.
• Next up, we've got Fuse, which is somewhat more ambitious attempt to make use of the car's dataport. Again, it does a lot of the expected stuff, tracking your driving habits, keeping track of maintenance and expenses, but then it also tries to connect with other apps and services. One feature is the carpool feature, which automatically classifies regular trips and can associate your contacts with the people you pick up, doing things like automatically emailing them when you're getting nearby. The company also promotes that the data is stored in a personal cloud -- and, like Park.IT above, it seems like the dataport device is partly promoting the company's "main business." In this case, Fuse is a product of Kynetix, which has an open source cloudOS, which Fuse users can use to store their own data under their own control. Fuse is looking for $60,000, and
  
  Fuse and they're about 20% of the way there with still about four weeks to go. To be honest, this one struck me as way too expensive for what you get. Not only is the device itself more expensive ($139 -- or $119 if you get in on the early bird), there's also an ongoing service fee. Getting in on the Kickstarter deal only gives you a 90 day free pass on service. So it seems like this could get expensive quickly, and it doesn't even look like the app is that well developed, or has that many features. Considering many of the other devices in this market are both cheaper and have no service fees, it's a tougher sell here (for example, the Automatic Link, which is getting very good reviews is $100 with no service fees).

I see these kinds of projects as really just a sign of what's coming down the road. Both of these projects really demonstrate more the potential of what's coming, rather than a full vision of where things can be. But, it seems like it's only a matter of time until people are both more in control over their driving data, but also able to do more with it as well, and to build useful applications on top of that data.

Filed Under: awesome stuff, cars, dataports

Awesome Stuff: Security Hardware For The Masses

from the stay-safe-now dept

Securing your computer and phone are something that is increasingly important, especially in light of all of the stories about privacy intrusions we've been discussing the past few months. For the most part, the average person has tended to rely on software-based security offerings, rather than hardware. While company may invest in hardware solutions, that's always seemed to be a bit too much for the average consumer. However, perhaps that's changing. This week's awesome stuff covers three crowdfunding campaigns, looking to build different types of secure hardware for the mass market.

• First up, we've got the amusingly named, Don't Snoop Me Bro (or DMSB for short). It's a VPN in a box. You hook it up to your network and turn the key (literally, it has a physical key) and it turns on a VPN tunnel via a VPN service routing your data through another country. These guys sent me a prototype to check out, and it looks interesting (though won't work with my network setup). They're still deciding what VPN service provider it will use, and it seems like that's something that could make a difference in terms of overall usefulness. Of course, you can already pay for a VPN service that just runs on your computer (I've got a couple), but the DSMB guys properly note that those aren't always the most user friendly and they only secure the one device, rather than the entire network (of course, they also work outside of your home/office). Still, if you're looking to VPN tunnel your home network, this is an interesting project to check out: The project is seeking $65,000 and has only raised around $5,000 with less than a month to go. Even though it's an IndieGoGo project, they chose the Kickstarter-like option of only getting the funds if it reaches the goal, so it needs to reach that target to get funded. There's still plenty of time, though, so go check it out.
• Another project with a great name is the Tuit mobile security ring. With all the talk of Apple trying to make security easier via their fingerprint ID reader, lots of people have pointed out that it's dangerous to have a security token that can't ever be changed -- such as your fingerprint. Of course, plenty of people like the general ease of use of the fingerprint reader over a pin or password. The tuit project seems to be an interesting attempt to offer a better solution overall, creating a ring that uses NFC (near field communication) to unlock your (Android only, it appears, though there are stretch goals for Windows) phone just by touching it with the ring on your hand. In other words, the theory is that if you're holding your phone, it'll unlock automatically, but no one else can do that, unless they take your ring or hold your hand up to it. It's obviously not perfect security since someone could get the ring in some way, but it does seem like a nice idea in terms of good convenience for the user (since many people don't use any lock screen at all because it's too inconvenient) while still creating some security, especially if the phone is taken from you. Also, as they note, you can still use a password to lock the screen and make it much more complex, since you won't have to type it in so often. These guys have a big hill to climb, as their goal is $100,000 and they've still raised less than $10,000 with about two and a half weeks to go. Not sure if people just aren't that interested, or if they haven't been able to get enough attention for the project.
• Finally, we've got the not so wonderfully named Qi4BOX, which is a USB key that encrypts all your local documents and documents in your Dropbox account. I'd imagine it's really only useful for those who are big time Dropbox users, but it's an interesting approach as a way to try to make the documents you put on Dropbox even more secure, without making it more user-unfriendly. As with all the projects this week, this one still has a ways to go, with about three weeks left. The folks behind it are seeking $30,000 Canadian, but are still only about a quarter of the way there. Perhaps the market for securing Dropbox documents isn't that big.

That's it for this week... stay secure.

Filed Under: awesome stuff, encryption, hardware, nfc, passwords, security, vpns

Awesome Stuff: Open Standards And Open Safety

from the openness-is-good dept

For this week's awesome stuff, we're going to highlight two projects that seek to bring out into the open things that are being held in secret for no good reason at all.

• Public Safety Codes of the World. We've written many times about Carl Malamud and his work with Public.Resource.org to buy up various "standards" that have been incorporated into US laws, and then making them freely available to the public, under the belief that the law should never be locked up and subject to copyright protections. Tragically, many standards are written by industry bodies, who then try to support themselves by selling (at exorbitant prices) copies of the details of those standards. But when politicians then write those standards into the law, it seems quite reasonable that the details of the standards really should be free. This is expensive work, since it involves buying up lots of standards and (all too frequently) fending off legal attacks. Given that, Malamud is seeking at least $100,000 to continue Public.Resource's work. The key goal behind this particular effort is to take many of the standards they've already scanned and turn them into HTML to make them much more accessible and usable. This is a good cause that you should support. Malamud has been doing tremendous work for years. So far the campaign has only raised about 20% of its $100,000 goal. That's unfortunate, since, as the project description makes clear, the more they can get, the more they can do with that money. If you have a couple of spare dollars around, please think about supporting this.
• Next up is a really interesting project from Underground Meats, where they're looking to Open Source their Food Safety Model. I had seen a couple friends back this, but didn't really look into the details until later. Basically, this is a small meat processing facility that is trying to become a USDA-certified meat processor. Apparently, the process is incredibly cumbersome and convoluted (welcome to having to deal with government bureaucracy). There is, of course, good intent behind some of this: the process to make sure that your meat production is safe should require some effort. But, at the same time, as we've seen for years, many companies have used massive bureaucratic regulatory schemes as an effective way to keep out small and innovative competitors, because the barrier to entry is so high. Here, no one is complaining about the need for a detailed food safety and sanitary practice plan, known as a HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) as part of the process -- but they are annoyed that every company going through this process needs to start from scratch, rather than learning from and building on those who have already gone through the process. Most big companies who have gone through the HACCP process then lock it up, claiming that they're covered by copyright.
  
  That's where this project comes in. The folks at Underground Meats are looking to not just "open source" their HACCP, but public domain it, by putting using a CC0 license to effectively dedicate the work to the public domain so others can make use of it. This is a cool approach, showing where copyright can impact things way beyond basic content creation. If lots of small companies in regulated industries could use the lead of others, without cost, to get through the various regulatory hurdles, we'd likely see a lot more innovative and upstart competition in overly regulated industries. It would be cool to see others follow this lead. This project has about a week to go and is around 90% funded, so it seems likely that it will just nudge its way over the finish line before it's all over.

I wish I had a third crowdfunding project highlighting opening up safety standards, but this is all I can find so far. It's a start.

Filed Under: awesome stuff, carl malamud, copyright, laws, open source, open standards, public domain, safety

Awesome Stuff: Rethinking The Backpack

from the carry-your-gear dept

As someone who is "on the go" all too frequently, I've been trying to perfect the idea of "my office is in my backpack" for a while (always getting closer and closer but not quite there...). For a while, however, I never put any thought into the backpack itself. I survived on a series of free backpacks picked up at various conferences, which came in varying sizes and levels of quality. A few years back I finally started asking around for ideas on good bags, and got a few recommendations for Swiss Army backpacks. On a whim I stopped by a local drug store and was surprised to see they had a bunch of Swiss Army backpacks on clearance (discounted, discounted again, then half off), and ended up with the bag I've now used for a few years now for less than $30. It's huge and it's great. It's durable, it's comfortable, well organized and it carries a ton of stuff. But there's a downside too: it's huge (yes, I know I cited that as a positive as well). I once almost got thrown off a bus in a foreign country because of the size of the backpack (don't ask). Lately I've been also using a smaller bag (yes, another free conference one) which can suffice for shorter trips, but I'm keeping my eye on what else is out there. Apparently, some other folks are thinking about the modern backpack as well, so here are a few crowdfunding projects concerning backpacks for this week's awesome stuff.

• First up is the Minaal ProTravel Carry-on backpack. Basically, some intrepid travelers designed the sort of backpack/carry-on bag that they've always wanted. It looks really nice if you do a lot of traveling. Well thought out if you're using it as both a bag for electronics gear and for clothes and stuff. Also, let's you hide the straps quickly and make it look more business-like in settings where a backpack might feel inappropriate. Also, their video (and campaign page) is fairly entertaining. Two lines from the campaign page that made me chuckle: "Pullers are suitable for right-handed & left-handed people. Ambidextrous people, no dice. We don't like your type around here" and "Other info you may be interested to know: the phone pocket is soft-lined. The cards and phone sit slightly lower than shown. There are around 4,000 species of frog known to man." Good to know. Of course, nice bags don't come cheap. This one will set you back $229 via Kickstarter, though they claim it will eventually retail at over $300. Plenty of people think it's worth it, however, as the campaign zoomed quickly past its $30,000 goal and is around $140,000 as I type, with nearly three weeks to go.
• Next up is a bag that is targeting the very same market, and amazingly launched on the very same day, with the very same campaign time frame and the very same target market, but which has received a lot less attention, though, frankly, the SOOT Electropack seems like a more compelling offering (to me, at least). The key to understanding the SOOT is that it's modular. The full deal is basically two separate bags (a basic backpack and a separate messenger bag) that can each be used separately, or which combine easily into a megabag. They're also highlighting the fact that they're selling it with a 10,000mAh battery that slips into a small pocket to keep your devices charged. While I can be somewhat obsessive about battery power as well, this part isn't as interesting, since there are so many third party external battery packs out there (and I prefer ones that can also charge laptops). That said, the modular nature of the SOOT is a pretty cool selling feature -- especially if you find a bag that's really big to be both a positive and a negative, depending on the situation. Again, even though it seems like a better option than the Minaal (which does look pretty damn nice as well) it just hasn't received as much attention. It's still just slightly under the $30,000 goal, though it'll certainly pass it before long. The bags aren't cheap, but they're less expensive than the Minaal (the combined version, without the battery pack, runs $179), and you can buy the separate pieces if you don't want the full combined bag.
• There are a few other "bags" on various crowdfunding sites right now, but none struck me as really unique or different from stuff that's already widely on the market. And then I came across the Pad Pouch backpack. Let me say upfront, that I don't think I'm the target market here, and I don't get it at all. It appears to be a backpack with a giant clear see-through pouch on the front where you can put a tablet to, um, express yourself? I think? It feels like it's targeted at younger folks (students, mainly), but it looks kind of a bit dorky in its current version -- but, again, perhaps actual students see it differently. I also find it somewhat amusing that they hype up their patent pending status (Kickstarter campaigns that play up their patents always set off alarm bells in my head), but then talk about how you can use this to put "free, copyrighted images from the internet" on your "shirt" this way (bonus question for copyright law professors to add to their next exam: would that be a copyright violation to display an image you found on the internet on your tablet while "wearing" the tablet?). Perhaps I'm not actually the only one confused by all of this, as it hasn't yet found too many backers (only 11 as I type this), though it's only seeking a $5,000 target, so perhaps people will show up and buy it in the month or so left on this project. The folks who made this do get points for originality, though. Haven't seen anything quite like this before.

That's it for this week. Of course, there are lots of backpacks on the market already, outside of crowdfunding campaigns. I'd be curious to hear about what other sorts of backpacks people like using these days.

Filed Under: awesome stuff, backpacks, innovation, office in a bag

Awesome Stuff: 3D Printing And Scanning Keeps Advancing

from the on-and-on-and-on dept

Welcome back for another week of awesome stuff, our weekly post on interesting crowdfunding projects. First off, just last week, awesome stuff was about reclaiming classic culture, and I expressed disappointment that only two campaigns could be found having to do with public domain materials. I should have waited a week because a new project launched which is a great companion to last week's Musopen's Chopin project. This time it's a project to record and release Bach music as well. Check it out.

But on to this week's offerings. It really was just a little less than four months ago that we had an awesome stuff post about 3D printing, marveling at how quickly the space had advanced (and gotten cheaper). And it seems like in just that short period of time there's been some continued movement in the 3D printing and 3D scanning world. There are so many 3D printing and 3D scanning projects going on right now, so let's point out a few.

• First up is the somewhat astounding Structure Sensor device, designed to turn your mobile device into a full 3D scanner. The video is slick, but if the device can do what it shows it's really quite impressive. From simple scanning of rooms or items and turning them immediately into 3D models to playing augmented reality game that really takes advantage of where you are, something like this seems to have a ton of potential, all hooked up to your mobile device. Watch the video and get inspired. Apparently there is tremendous demand for this sort of thing. The project only launched a few days ago and already is well past half a million dollars with over a month to go. This looks like another massive Kickstarter success story.
• As you'll see below, there are a ton of 3D printers out there, each one emphasizing different features. It can get a little difficult to stand out from the crowd. However, the Peachy 3D Printer and Scanner caught my attention. First off, it's $100. Yes. $100. The current "floor" for low end 3D printers has been around $400, so if this guy can really do $100 3D printers, that's very interesting. But perhaps even more interesting is that when you watch the video, you realize that he's not building yet another 3D printer by riffing off the way everyone else tries to do it, but he really rethought how a 3D printer could be built. It doesn't look like most other 3D printers, and doesn't appear to really work in the same way as other 3D printers. The fact that he built his first prototype almost entirely with "objects around the house" is kind of crazy. That said, it's pretty clear that this project is very early. The output quality of the Peachy Printer is clearly much, much lower than most other 3D printers on the market. So there's an element of "you get what you pay for" going on here. But, still, it's inspiring to see this attempt to just rethink how a 3D printer could work (and how it could be pretty cheap). With this project, people are really betting on a dream. The project is still very much in the early stages, and needs a lot of refinement. His expected delivery date isn't until next summer, and as pretty much everyone who's ever backed a Kickstarter project knows, projects always run late. Either way, the project has already raised about a third of its $50,000 (CAD) goal, with a month to go, so it will likely reach its target.
• Next up, we've got the 3Dsimo, which is a 3D printer "pen." You may remember the 3Doodler, which was one of the most successful projects on Kickstarter from earlier this year (raising $2.3 million). The 3Dsimo looks like a fairly similar offering, though it seems to be getting almost no attention at all. These extruder pens are a little different than a true "3D printer" but I'm expecting the market for these to develop separately as well, as people realize how handy it can be to "freehand" create a 3D object. As mentioned, this project seems to have received almost no attention. Unlike the 3Doodler which shot through its goal in almost no time at all, the 3Dsimo opened its campaign a week ago and only has six backers. It's a long way away from reaching its goal. Remember, running a crowdfunding project requires more than just putting it up and hoping people come.
• There are so many other 3D printers and scanners currently in the midst of crowdfunding projects. So rather than doing the typical "deep dive," I figured I'd do some quick hits on a bunch of them:
  • Zim: a dual head WiFi 3D printer, that has a really nice compact design, with a focus on being easy to use. Priced at the lower end (different models, all well under $1,000). You can remote control it from your smartphone, which is cool, complete with a camera so you can see how the printing is going even if you're not there.
  • Phoenix 3D Printer: a more traditional 3D printer, hitting that "sweet spot" on the low end of $400. This one looks like a ton of other 3D printers, but they claim that the software is a lot nicer, though it's a bit tough to tell.
  • Lionhead 3D printer and scanner. These guys also talk up their software, and the printer is definitely a higher end printer, with 3 or 8 print heads, designed for ease of use and to look nice... but with a much higher price point. This is definitely more in the tradition of premium 3D printers.
  • gMax 3D Printer. A traditional looking 3D printer, priced slightly over $1,000, the focus here is on being able to print big things. So if you think you'll be needing to print larger items, this one may be worth checking out.
  • ZEUS, which they claim is the "first" 3D printer/copy machine, but since some of the other projects in this very list do that too, this claim is a bit suspect. This is also a premium priced offering, between $2,000 and $2,500. The device itself is nicely designed, complete with a 7-inch touch screen. Of all the 3D printers, this one has more of a "consumer ready" feel, but not exactly a consumer-ready price.
  • On the 3D scanner side, I'll point to both the Dimbody and the Rubicon, which offer fairly similar products, though at first glance they're much more limited than the Structure Sensor above.

And... that's it for this extra long awesome stuff. Maybe in a few months we'll revisit the 3D printing and scanning space again to see just how rapidly it continues to innovate, advance and change.

Filed Under: 3d printing, 3d scanning, awesome stuff

Awesome Stuff: Reclaiming Classic Culture

from the it's-about-time dept

For years, we've talked about the importance of not letting historical cultural artifacts die out. Unfortunately, today's copyright law has a way of making sure that certain classic cultural works are locked up and hidden away (which, of course, is exactly the opposite of what copyright is supposed to do). Similarly, in some cases mere adherence to tradition and pretension is locking up culture as well. So, for this week's awesome stuff post, we've got three projects about reclaiming culture.

• First up, we've got the latest Kickstarter project from the folks at Musopen, Set Chopin Free. If you've been following this space for a while, you've probably heard of Musopen, whom we've covered before. The organization actually was a super early adopter of Kickstarter, focusing on raising money to record incredibly excellent recordings of public domain music, and then setting the recordings free as well (quick copyright lesson for those unfamiliar: anyone can record/play public domain compositions without licenses, but there's a separate copyright on any sound recordings that come out of it -- so most recordings of public domain music are still under copyright for the recording, if not the composition). After an early false start, Musopen had one of the first high profile Kickstarter successes, and now they're back for more. From the title, you can probably tell that the goal is to record all of the works of Chopin and release them for free. They went with a fairly ambitious goal of $75,000 to do this, which was even more than Musopen raised last time, though that was in the early days of Kickstarter, before so many people were used to it. The campaign is almost there with still over a month to go, so they'll end up surpassing the goal by quite a lot by the time this is done.
• Here's a somewhat different one, where two guys in Italy are trying to buy up two rare mystery novels by J.S. Fletcher, with the plan to scan, ocr, correct, proofread and then release to the world the works so other scan read them. Of course, those works, "The Borgia Cabinet" from 1930 and "The Matheson Formula" from 1929 are not actually in the public domain in the US, though they are in much of the rest of the world.
  
  Unfortunately, it appears that this campaign hasn't been able to get any attention at all, as it's raised a grand total of nothing (with a goal of $600). It doesn't look like the team behind this has really done much at all to promote it -- there's no video with the campaign (generally considered a necessity) and even the project description is very short and without details. It's too bad, because you'd think with a little imagination, they could convince people to support the project. Also, they don't offer anything for most of the tiers -- just a thank you. Part of what tends to make crowdfunding campaigns work, even when people are convinced to support a larger ideal, is that they get some unique benefit for doing so.
• Tragically, those appear to be the only projects on either Kickstarter or IndieGoGo (or a few other smaller crowdfunding platforms I checked out -- though there may be some elsewhere) that were attempting to make the public domain more accessible directly. However, for the third project, I thought this fit into the spirit of the above projects. It's a documentary called What Would Beethoven Do?, that takes a look how orchestras and classical music arts organizations, that have struggled to remain relevant (especially with younger audiences) are starting to learn how get beyond the stuffy reputation of classical music, and embrace new technologies, new media to become relevant again. I highly recommend the pitch video, which is quite well done: On the funding side, unfortunately it looks like this one is lagging a bit. The filmmakers are looking for $22,000, but they've raised less than 20% of that with about two weeks to go. It'll be a challenge to make up that difference. I was a bit surprised to see that the cheapest level to actually get a digital download of the film starts at $50 -- which seems a bit on the steep side. I wonder if they would have been able to grab more backers with a more reasonable price point.

Either way, it's good to see people looking to make important cultural artifacts relevant and accessible again. It's too bad we don't actually see more of those kinds of projects these days.

Filed Under: awesome stuff, chopin, classical music, copyright, culture, public domain

Awesome Stuff: More Crowdfunding Attempts At Private And Secure Communications

from the creating-a-market dept

Back in July, we did one of our weekly awesome stuff crowdfunding posts about a variety of new crowdfunding projects designed to keep communications and activites online private and away from snooping governments. That was only a month into the NSA revelations. Last month, we wrote about a few more projects that would help people keep their data private, including the mail service Mailpile, who was back in the news this week. We've suggested that all these revelations would lead a number of individuals and companies to look to build more secure and private systems, so we're back this week with two more crowdfunding projects that put security and privacy at the top of their lists.

• First up, we've got Trsst, which is more or less a distributed secure RSS-based platform that can be used to effectively create Twitter/Tumblr/blog-like features for public posting, but which also allows encrypted posting via public key encryption. There's an uphill battle to get adoption, as with a variety of other similar attempts (something the team here acknowledges), but they put forth a pretty compelling case why they can actually deliver something useful, and why it also doesn't depend quite as much on getting tons of people to adopt it to make it useful (thanks to RSS). They're about 2/3 of the way to their goal with a week to go, so check it out.
• Next up is Mailelf, who, like MailPile, are trying to build a much easier to use encrypted email system. There are a few things in the description that leave me scratching my head about what exactly it is they're building, and frankly, the fact that it's not entirely clear is a bit of a strike against the whole system. Is it local client software? Is it more like Mailvelope? Unclear. But it's still good to see more attempts at making encrypted email much more user-friendly. While Mailpile had a bunch of notable names behind it, and got a lot of support pretty quickly, it seems that Mailelf hasn't been able to attract the same level of attention, and it only has a tiny part of the funding it's seeking at this point, with three weeks to go. It seems highly unlikely that it will make its goal, but perhaps they'll try again with a clearer explanation of what they're actually building, and with a bit more marketing effort.

It's definitely good to see more projects with this sort of focus, though it feels like we need a few more big projects, perhaps from larger companies that are much more focused on true security combined with ease of use before it really takes off.

Filed Under: awesome stuff, email, encryption, privacy, rss, security

Awesome Stuff: Tools For Animation

from the animate-stuff dept

For this week's awesome stuff post, we're keeping it simple with just two items, both of which are free and open source projects having to do with animation.

• First up is Tupi: 2D Animation Software for Everyone, which is exactly what it sounds like. The software looks very user friendly and fun to play around with. They're being a bit ambitious, looking for $30,000 and they still have a long way to go, but with three and a half weeks to go, if they can get some more attention, they still have a shot. The main reward levels are more like sponsorship levels, allowing animators to promote their works on the Tupi website, which may or may not be of interest to some. Still, the project itself looks quite cool.
• Next up is a more specific project: apngasm, a tool for making animated PNG images, while also pushing to get past the animated GIF, and finally moving to PNG instead. Just like regular PNG images are much better than regular GIF images, the animated counterparts represent a step up as well. These guys started with a much more modest goal of $5,000, which they've just about doubled, and there's still a week to go.

I hope everyone has a nicely animated Labor Day weekend (if you're in the US) or just a regular weekend if you're elsewhere.

Filed Under: animation, awesome stuff, free software, open source

Awesome Stuff: Multi-Tool Time

from the tooling-around dept

For this week's awesome stuff post, we decided to look at some multi-tool offerings. There are actually a lot of multi-tool crowdfunding projects out there, with a bunch of them just being a single simple multi-tool. This post is certainly not meant to be a comprehensive listing of all, but rather to pick a few that were a little different and distinct.

• First up are the Ti2 Para-Biners, combining the concept of a multitool with a carabiner. It seriously looks indestructible and would probably be the last carabiner you'd ever need. These don't go cheap, as you're starting at $43 for the cheapest model, but there certainly appears to be quite a bit of demand for these things. With about three weeks left to go, the project has already zoomed way past its $10,000 target to around $60,000.
• Next up, we've got the Silverback 12+ function multi-tool and minimalist wallet. There are a lot of card-style multitools out there, but this one definitely has an awful lot built into a single tool plus, on top of that, the ability to double as a minimalist wallet. Of course, if you use it as a wallet, it might make it a little more annoying to make use of the tools part, since you may have to dump the contents of your wallet first. I kind of like the fact that they kept the pricing on this one pretty straightforward and simple, rather than having a ton of different tiers. And, frankly, it seems pretty cheap for what you get -- so I'm a bit surprised that its only raised around $1,000 of the $3,500 they're seeking. There's still a month and a half to go, and if the project creator can actually drum up some attention (kids: don't forget, you need to market your Kickstarter too), it seems likely to go over the target, though perhaps not by that much.
• I already mentioned how many card-style multi-tools there are out there, but the offering from Tuls is interesting in that it's actually a set of four different mutli-tool cards, so you can have a nice set. The names of the four tools -- Roul, Stan, Lucy and Opie are all kind of amusing once you figure out the main purpose of each tool (though, the Opie tool seems almost too minimalist here, and it makes you wonder why the Stan tool can't do what the Opie tool does). While I like the concept of a multi-tool card set, this one seems kind of pricey. To actually get all four, you're spending over $80. You can buy them in smaller combinations as well, and lots of people have. They're already pushing $30,000 -- way over their target of $1,500, so apparently lots and lots of other people disagree with me on the pricing being too high.
• Finally, we've got one that isn't quite as portable, but is effectively a basic toolbox in one device, called the Zeus multi-tool. Take the basic concept of a pocket knife, and expand it to larger tools -- giving you a fold out saw, pliers, knife, adjustable screwdriver with 16 different sized bits, a hammer, a measuring tape and a detachable light. The thing that surprised me, slightly, was the hammer. I can't recall seeing multi-tools that include a hammer. While they do spell out the dimensions, it would be nice to actually see it in someone's hand, as that would give a better sense of how "handy" it actually is. From the description, I wonder if it's too big, but without any images, it's a little tough to tell. Also, I've been growing wary of projects that advertise how they've received a patent. I'd much rather someone is focusing on executing and building a great product, not spending times with their lawyers and getting a weapon to sue other innovators over. So far the Zeus is really struggling, raising just a few hundred dollars, despite the project being open for over a month. With less than three weeks to go, it's unclear if it'll make its $1,300 goal -- but since it's an IndieGoGo flex funds campaign, all money committed will go to the project's owner. It's unclear if he'll still be able to produce the devices if there really are only a few orders (as I write this there are only six orders), so buyer beware. Either way, perhaps rather than getting a patent, they should have focused a bit more on marketing this and getting the word out.

I hope everyone enjoys their weekend -- and if you've got some home improvement projects to do, make sure you've got the right tools for the job.

Filed Under: awesome stuff, innovation, multi-tools