kickstarter

Zooka: Glow-in-the-dark iPad speaker for tablet raves

I see lots of iPad speakers out there. With several options currently being promoted on Kickstarter alone, it can be hard to get noticed among all the competition. That's probably why the Zooka speaker now glows.

The wireless Zooka has a tough silicone sound bar design that slips onto the edge of your iPad, or connects via Bluetooth or audio jack to other devices.

Regular Zookas are available in a small rainbow of colors for $89. Pitch in at the $149 level on Kickstarter and you'll get an iPad speaker that will match your Tron costume.… Read more

Sideburn mounts your iPhone via Mac SD card slot

Remember that "X-Files" episode when the guy had his own brother growing out of him as a detachable parasitic twin? You can get the same effect with your iPhone and a Mac thanks to the under-used SD card slot and a new Kickstarter project.

The iPhone is a fairly dainty device, but it still needs a helping hand to fit into an SD card slot. That is where the Sideburn comes in.… Read more

Capture faceplant videos with the Miveu-X iPhone mount

If you're a sports fanatic and have always wanted to capture your sporting activities as you see them, the Miveu-X accessory could be your best bet.

Designed by David McDonald, this ruggedized accessory allows you to capture videos of your adventures from your point-of-view using an iPhone 4/4S at a fraction of the price of dedicated sports-oriented video cameras.

The Miveu-X set consists of a mount, which can be secured onto the wearer's chest and a separate, rugged, high-impact case. The case is equipped with a wide-angle lens to enable users to capture wider perspectives and comes … Read more

Ramos alarm clock makes you go to another room to turn it off

Let's review some of the most obnoxious alarm clocks to ever grace our nightstands. Clocky is an alarm with wheels that runs away from you. Tocky rolls around. The Defusable Clock requires cutting the right wire to subdue the alarm.

The Ramos clock on Kickstarter is also into defusion, but you're going to have to crawl out of your warm bed, locate the wireless control panel, and punch in a series of numbers that changes every day. … Read more

Zen Table lets robotics do the meditative work

I had a desktop Zen garden once, then the cat stepped on it and sent granules of sand flying everywhere. I'd be willing to take a chance on a new inside Zen garden, but only if it's a Zen Table.

The Zen Table is a Kickstarter project that successfully reached its funding goal earlier this month. It's a glass-top table filled with tiny silicone beads so that the whole creation has the appearance of an enclosed Zen garden.

Zen garden coffee tables have been done before, but not quite like this one. Beneath that sea of silicone is a system of electronics and robotics that carves images into the sand. Load up an SD card with bitmaps, and let the machine do the rest.… Read more

Kickstarter racks up over $2 million for two projects

"WoooooooooOOOOoooOoOoooOOooo! We did it! 100% funded in just over eight hours. You people are amazing!," read the Kickstarter page for Tim Schafer's Double Fine Adventure today.

This was one of two projects to hit $1 million in donations today from the crowd-source funding platform Kickstarter.

According to Kickstarter, every week, tens of thousands of people pledge millions of dollars to projects listed on its site. But never has a project topped $1 million, much less two in one day.

One of the projects is the Elevation Dock designed by Casey Hopkins, the founder of ElevationLab in Portland, … Read more

Manifold Clock: A 3D timepiece for math geeks

The Manifold Clock from Studio Ve doesn't require special glasses. It didn't take a crew of 300 and a Hollywood budget to create. It's 3D in its purest form: real life.

The Manifold Clock doesn't just tell time with flat hands, it expresses it with ever-changing shapes created by a flexible sheet of Tyvek attached between the hands. Every minute looks slightly different.

There's some delightful mathematical geekiness behind all of this. The design uses the concept of Riemann surfaces.

If you're a math nerd, you probably already know all about Riemann surfaces. Others can brush up with the Kickstarter video below.… Read more

GloSpex glasses light up, freak people out

If you want to do like the song says and wear your sunglasses at night, then you should pledge for a set of GloSpex on Kickstarter.

GloSpex have one-way illuminated lenses. That means that the light glows out, but doesn't shine into the wearer's eyes.

A $20 pledge gets you one set with black frames and either red, green, yellow, or blue illumination.

The inventor of GloSpex says the principle behind the technology is "total internal reflection." You'll have to check out the Kickstarter promo video to get the science lecture explanation.… Read more

Kickstarter grounds Eye3 flying camera

Fancy having your own self-guided flying camera mount? One that could get your Canon dSLR soaring over your house and neighborhood for only $2,500?

Kickstarter fans would, so much so that they ponied up triple the $25,000 funding goal for the Eye3 hexacopter, powered by the open-source APM2 autopilot platform.

After all, flying drones, military and civilian, can record stunning footage for a lot less than the price of a helicopter camera crew.

But Kickstarter has poked its finger in the Eye3, pulling the plug on funding. … Read more