kickstarter

It feels good to own a new Mac notebook. You're on top of the world until you haul your laptop someplace and let your battery run low before realizing that you're a MagSafe adapter short of juicing up. If only you hadn't lost that tiny, but critical, piece of equipment.

Apple changed the MagSafe power adapter hookup for its laptops in 2012, leaving consumers with a few gazillion out-of-date power adapters. To remedy the situation, Apple offered a $9.99 MagSafe to MagSafe 2 converter. It works, but it's small and easy to lose. … Read more

Mario's multilevel gaming style has endured for good reasons. It's simple, it's fun, and it's addictive. Once you've conquered the realms of Mario and other similar retro games, where do you go next? How about creating your own custom video game? That sounds great, but you'll need to brush up on your programming skills first. Unless, that is, Kickstarter project Pixel Press gets off the ground.

With Pixel Press, you just need the app, a piece of paper, a pencil, and your imagination to create your own game. No coding required.

Here's how it works. You start by printing out the gridded Pixel Press sketch sheet, along with the instructions. You can design five layers on the sketch sheet using certain elements like terrain, hazards, monkey bars, moving platforms, barriers, spikes, portals, and power-ups. You draw all these out onto the grid, with the aim of designing five progressively more challenging levels for your hero to conquer.… Read more

In my ideal universe, all meals are pizza, all pizzas make you lose weight, and every smartphone comes with some kind of kickstand.

That's because I like to read or watch videos while eating my magical weight-loss pizzas. Alas, very few phones can be propped up at comfortable viewing angles -- not without some kind of DIY stand.

Or this: The Keyprop is a smartphone stand that rides shotgun on your keychain. Or it will, if developer Alison Wong raises enough funds.

The Keyprop looks like your average plastic key, save for two small "teeth" that protrude … Read more

Few mobile devices are in the same league with the iPhone 4 and 5 in terms of hardware design -- at least until the HTC One came along.

Of course, Apple has famously traded function for form at times. But from a purely aesthetic point of view, the real challenge for the iPhone is that its owners value the device so much they wrap it in hideously ugly cases to protect it.

The world's ugliest phone cases are used to protect the world's most beautiful mobile device (at least in my eyes). The evidence is in abundance from … Read more

A new shirt being touted as "the better button-down" aims to make laundry as we know it a thing of the past. The entrepreneur behind it claims it never wrinkles and can be worn over and over, without being washed.

Marketing grad Mac Bishop, 24, says his shirt not only looks good, but is soft to the touch, resistant to wrinkling, and odor-free. To prove it, he wore one of the shirts for 100 days in a row without washing it.

"I've (run) 4 miles in this shirt, I've biked 5 miles in this shirt, I've thrown it on after a basketball game," Bishop told CBS News. "It airs out. It's the miracle fiber." … Read more

You can take notes on meetings or lectures on an iPad, or you can record videos of meetings or lectures -- but you can't have it both ways.

Kickstarter project MirrorCase aims to solve that dilemma. It's an iPad case that uses mirrors to point the camera lens forward, while at the same time raising the tablet to a comfortable typing angle.

For students and business users alike, that's potentially a big deal. It means you can sit in a conference room or lecture hall, typing or sketching on your iPad while at the same time recording … Read more

When Dave Girouard worked at Google, he noticed a pattern. He met a lot of young people early in their careers taking the conservative route -- choosing a stable job in a big company instead of following their dreams, taking risks, and striking out on their own.

So Girouard, Anna Mongayt (also a former Googler), and Thiel fellow Paul Gu launched Upstart.com in 2012. Girouard describes it as a kind of Kickstarter for people. Instead of investing in a company or product, financial backers invest in a person and their potential over time. In return, investors receive a small … Read more

Humans have a lot in common with magpies. We gravitate toward shiny things.

It's easy, then, to see why the Glowing Plants project on Kickstarter has more than doubled its goal and still has 38 days to go. It's a fascinating mix of botany, science, and unexpected glowing things.

Some people can boast a green thumb, but very few people can boast a glowing green thumb. For a pledge of $40, Glowing Plants will send you 50 to 100 seeds to let you raise your own glowing plant at home. The project's creators say that this is a one-off opportunity and the seeds will not be available commercially later on.… Read more

If you've always wanted a pair of HD digital binoculars, you could very well get some without shelling out the big bucks.

A new smartphone accessory called Snapzoom allows you to mate your smartphone camera with the optical scope of a pair of binoculars, dramatically increasing the reach of your handset. The iPhone 5, for instance, would get its normal 33mm focal length boosted to 330mm on a 10x spotting scope.

Compatible with most smartphones (with or without a case), the Snapzoom can be mounted on all single- and dual-eyepiece scopes, which include the usual binoculars, spotting scopes, telescopes, and even microscopes. … Read more