indiegogo

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Another reason not to buy books: Hackers installed credit card readers at 63 stores across the country, New York City included.

- Attention New Yorkers: It's officially time to freak out about Hurricane Sandy.

- SDSU study confirms that five-second rule is pretty much bull.

- A license plate frame that defeats red light camera flashes.… Read more

Industrial designer Kotaro Shimogori has taken to crowdfunding site Indiegogo to raise funds for a Bluetooth-powered appliance that functions as a physical extension of your smartphone's notifications bar. But if you lived through the 1990s with me, you probably recognize Dr. Blinky for what it really is -- the resurrection of the pager with a 21st century spin.

In a nutshell, Dr. Blinky connects to an app on your Android phone (the iOS app is in progress) that you can configure to blink whenever you want to be notified of a new call, text, e-mail, or whatever. Dr. Blinky can also be set to blink in different patterns for different types of notifications. … Read more

If you were monitoring the presidential debate between Mitt Romney and President Obama in Denver last night via Twitter, you might think that Big Bird and Sesame Street were the sole topic of conversation.

In the midst of pledging to cut federal funding for PBS if elected, Romney apologized to moderator Jim Lehrer -- who hosts the PBS Newshour -- saying, "I like PBS, I love Big Bird. Actually like you, too."

Almost instantly, satirical Big Bird accounts like SadBigBird, Fired Big Bird, and BigBirdRomney sprung up on Twitter and gathered thousands of followers over the next hour. At one point during the debate, the phrase "Big Bird" was being tweeted 17,000 times a minute.

Portland-based activist Sam Chapman took it a step further and posted a campaign on Indiegogo after the debate titled "Keep Your Mitts Off of Big Bird!" The flexible funding campaign will send all funds raised -- regardless of whether the $100,000 target is reached -- directly to PBS.… Read more

Marc Erlbaum has produced a movie starring Will Ferrell, and now he's ready for a little more heady project -- crowdsourcing the search for the meaning of life.

Erlbaum and his company, Nationlight Productions, were part of the team behind the acclaimed 2010 Ferrell flick "Everything Must Go," but for their latest project, they're turning to crowd-funding site Indiegogo and the whole of humanity rather than just Hollywood. While Erlbaum's team plans to make a documentary of their search for the meaning of life, that's not the main product Nationlight is looking to create through the campaign. Instead, here's how they describe the goal:… Read more

Seth Froom was the victim of a violent robbery last summer. His response was to create the Yellow Jacket, an iPhone case crossed with a Taser. The project is currently up on Ingiegogo for fundraising.

As far as stun guns go, the Yellow Jacket makes sense in that you are likely to have it with you at all times, in a convenient place where you can reach it when you need it.

However, you might be nervous about having 650,000 volts of electricity surging around your phone. Froom says that tests of the prototype have shown that calls stay connected during discharge. … Read more

LAS VEGAS--You move, so does your iPhone. And it's taking a video of you. Crazy, right?

This is the much-talked-about Swivl, and I got to play with it at CES.

It's simple to use. You stick your iPhone or iPod Touch in the dock, and then hang the marker around your neck and off it goes. It works with infra-red light and radio frequency.

The product is the brainchild of Brian Lamb, who a year ago ran a crowd-funding campaign on Indiegogo, a rival to Kickstarter.

He quickly raised $25,000, selling enough preorders to pay for 250 … Read more