kickstarter

The cloud may be the future of all things storage, but the present is more complicated: it can be expensive, potentially insecure, and you're left trusting a third party with all your data.

That's what inspired The Transporter, a Kickstarter project started by former employees of Drobo. Transporter aims for something more secure and distributed, while still being sharable. The concept largely works like Dropbox, with a Transporter folder that lives on your desktop and syncs with files stored on the physical Transporter drive (which resides someplace you designate). You can easily give others access to specific folders, … Read more

If you're a cyclist, you know it's always a good idea to sport enough lights that motorists can see you while you pedal away at night. This is where the Halo Zero LED messenger bag, a Kickstarter project, comes in.

Each handmade bag will be crafted by Rickshaw in San Francisco and is big enough to fit a 15-inch notebook. The bag includes two front pockets as well. Halo Zero's fiber optic LED light attaches to the front of the bag via velcro. … Read more

It's a new era for lightbulbs. Incandescents are well on their way to being obsolete. Compact fluorescents are reigning champs, but LEDs are rising through the ranks, looking to challenge CFLs with advancing technology and falling prices. As fast as the tech changes, we're still pretty hooked on the old-school incandescent shape. We still want our bulbs.

The NanoLight Kickstarter project wants to give us LEDs without sacrificing the traditional bulb shape and ability to shine light in all directions. The result is a bulb that looks like it was designed by a Cubist painter. The makers claim it is the most energy-efficient light bulb in the world.… Read more

The Lomography Smartphone Film Scanner lets you conveniently scan your negatives with a smartphone so you can easily share those '70s summer camp pics on Twitter. Created by the same people behind Lomography, this portable scanner can scan a variety of 35mm film -- color slides, color negatives, black and white film.

Besides the scanner, all you need is a smartphone and the included free Lomoscanner app (compatible with iOS and Android). The app not only scans your film, but lets you stitch images together (for panoramas, for example), as well as animate 35mm analog movies shot using the Lomography … Read more

Tech startup Coleridge Design Associates is trying to raise $45,000 on Kickstarter to manufacture a sleek-looking and transparent-sounding desktop speaker system, the aCube BMR. I've covered Kickstarter projects before, but this time I had a chance to listen to the product, and the sound definitely piqued my interest.

The aCube uses an advanced 4.5-inch BMR (Balanced Mode Radiator) driver mounted in handmade clear-cast acrylic 6.5-inch cube enclosures. The $180 speaker houses a stereo 20-watt Class-D amplifier, but if you want stereo sound, you have to buy a second speaker (without the amp) for $120. Optional at … Read more

The next superstorm could strike anytime. If you're concerned about having electricity, the MetAir Solstice packs a whopping 55,000 mAh of power.

This portable charger from QuantumSphere has power equivalent to 115 D-cell batteries under a 2 amp load.

It's being billed on a Kickstarter campaign as the world's most powerful portable device charger. … Read more

There's a certain sense of wonder and excitement that arises when keeping tabs on the latest and greatest Kickstarter and Indiegogo projects. Browsing those marketplaces, I often ask myself, "Will they stay, or will they go?"

The new Web site Outgrow.me features a visual directory of successful crowdfunded darlings, which you can browse according to availability -- such as projects available now or those still in preorder status. Any projects currently seeking money won't even show up on the site, meaning Outgrow acts as an easy way to wade through all of the noise and buy some potentially cutting-edge products ready for prime time. … Read more

LAS VEGAS--When the Luminae glass keyboard project concluded its campaign on Kickstarter in early 2012, it was pretty much just a glimmer in its creator's eye, more an idea than a product. That didn't stop it from nearly tripling its funding goal. Move ahead to CES 2013 and the Luminae from TransluSense is very much a real thing, and it's a thing of beauty.

A light pipe, infrared LEDs, and visible LEDs feed signals into the artfully curved glass. Three cameras look upward from below and see when your fingers break the light pattern. That's how it recognizes what you're doing on the glass. A smaller trackpad version will also be available.

So what's the purpose of a glass keyboard, especially one that costs $500? For starters, you'll never have to shake, toothpick, or vacuum crumbs out from under your keys ever again. Ultimately, the real answer is that it just plain looks awesome.… Read more

2012 was a banner year for Kickstarter, the crowdfunding service.

Last year, 2.2 million people pledged nearly $320 million to projects across the service. All told, 18,109 projects were successfully funded. To put that into perspective, $99.3 million was pledged via the site in 2011.

Kickstarter also shed some light on last year's power backers Nearly 571,000 people backed two more projects, but 50,000 backed 10 or more. And about 450 people backed 100 or more projects.

Kickstarter has become an online juggernaut, giving entrepreneurs, artists, and others the chance their pitch their projects … Read more