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It sounds like Google is seriously working on improvements for Superbooks, desktop docks, and similar arrangements where the phone takes on PC-like properties. I have been using my S7 with a keyboard/mouse and a DisplayLink adapter for a short while, and the two problems that plague it, besides poor video framerate, are the inability to operate the displays at different resolutions, and the awkward UI design/keyboard bindings that were clearly not designed for desktops. What Google is doing makes perfect sense to me.

Perhaps we are about to see a spate of laptop/desktop-like Android products, for which these changes are needed?

looks like someone has run out of hookers and blow and needs to re-up.

How can anyone make a case that has another cellphone in it and then sell it for $119 ($149 for 4G). it Literally makes no sense as to why they just wouldn't put forth a cellphone for that much. Yes i understand it isnt a full phone but its almost there anyways, all its missing is a mic and speaker.

this is vaporware and i can see this being shut down or never delivering. shame on you /. for helping these people scam more money out of people.

The English on the kickstarter is atrocious and the faq are laughable but the real kicker is the company information:

https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...
its partners are a random dude and an ad company. the name of the person that started the campaign and the named owner of the company are different, very odd...

something suspicious from the faq:
"I've just backed you up, why I was not given a choice to choose color and iPhone model of Eye?

After the campaign will end, you'll get a survey asking you about the iPhone model, color and address."

why not just ask that information with the pledge?

also found something in the comments from the creator:

"We did a lot of research about manufacturing and software developing cost for this project. The reward price and the campaign goal will guarantee supplying Eye to are backers and Kick start our company for further production."

research eh??,,, please tell me how they will be able to stick a large battery, lcd and sim/expansion cards in something that is claimed to be thinner than just a battery pack case?

I agree, the entire "system" is a scam, with Kickstarter themselves taking around 8% (it varies by country) of the loot.

What would help sales of manga is making more of it available in an open digital format. Physical manga takes up a lot of space given its entertainment value/time to read. The larger format, superior contrast to standard pulp paper, and higher portability (without a proprietary "reader" application or constant internet connection to read on a website) makes the scannlator's "product" superior.

I recently contributed to a Kickstarter for a certain manga title that has had trouble getting an official English release because it has met some controversy in the West. I'm getting a digital edition. I already have a fully scannlated copy of the original work, so the almost $100 I spent to get this officially-licensed translation wasn't really needed. What's more, the official licensee hired the original scannlator to handle the localization -- so the old argument about "inferior fan translation vs. professional" is bupkis. I'm buying a "version 2" of the same guy's work.

What made me contribute was 1) I could get it digital 2) It's an open format (no DRM). The title uses stenography or some other watermarking to tie my personal copy to my purchase in case I should share it. I can use any normal comic reader app to view it.

This unfortunately is a minority of English-language manga release. Most require online web-viewing or only come in dead-tree edition.

You actually thought you could make a dent in mobile OSes when even Microsoft couldn't?

Right. Microsoft will tenaciously support something for a decade even if it's a flop. They need to do this to attract any developers in the first place.

Five years ago, I thought that the idea sounded interesting, but Mozilla's lack of being able to commit to anything was a red flag for me. I suppose this was true for most hardware vendors, and they never pledged any kind of long-term support, so it was doomed from the beginning.

The bigger problem is that MoFo is paying people half a million dollars a year for "leadership" and they don't even get such basic concepts. Good luck convincing smart people to go work in a corporate culture of intolerance, though. Maybe they can get some smart consultants though, if caring about the original MoFo vision and cash-on-the-barrel are the only requirements.

Hearing a lot about problems with Kickstarter projects lately.

Robert X Cringely is involved with a kickstarter project that he seems to be hiding from after collecting $35k, promising in comments on his blog a long-awaited status update "in a few days" and still getting complaints about not following through 3 weeks later with updates on a project that was supposed to ship over a year ago and hasn't posted a status update in over 11 weeks.

Kickstarter is looking more and more like a great place to get scammed. Caveat emptor, and don't assume you can trust a name you've been familiar with for decades.

I don't think so. While color indeed does make the image more realistic, 3D video doesn't.

Correction: 3D video projected from a small source with an extremely limited FoV doesn't make the image more realistic. The problem is all about the tiny field of view and imperfect crosstalk, etc.

3D video using a high end VR system makes the image MUCH more realistic. Yes, they glasses (headset, really) is even more intrusive, but the effect can be (for some people almost literally) shit your pants realistic...

This ARM board looks promising:
64-bit
4 GiB of RAM
32GB of eMMC flash
802.11ac WiFi
Ethernet
2x M.2 PCIe
USB 3
$199
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

or higher end, and much more expensive AMD A1100 series Opteron:
http://softiron.com/products/o...

Here's one. 4GB RAM, SATA, USB3, DP+HDMI that can do real multi-head, 2*PCIe (only M.2 connectors but compatible with adapters to regular PCIe), and so on.

https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

They weren't terribly expensive frankly.

My Citizen watch cost me way more money.

https://smile.amazon.com/Citiz...

But I guess no matter how much you spend on things, someone will have an issue with wasted money.

https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

If they were going out of business for 2 years, why the HELL did they sell me a watch in a Kickstarter that I just received last month? I paid $99 for a watch that I have just lost the warranty (I just paid for) on according to their email.

FYI, Pebble 2 that was Kickstarted was $99.

https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

I unfortunately lost my warranty on mine because Fitbit didn't take over the warranties of Pebble.

As far as the HR monitor, it is useful when running to make sure you are above the fat burning level of heart rate, but don't go into VO2 max territory. It is useful for those of us that don't run on a regular basis, and don't know well enough what pace to run at as it gives a goal and range to shoot for.

In most Kickstarter situations, the credit card was already charged months before delivery. For example:

Pebble was charged May 18, 2012. According to their updates, their first shipment was in January 23, 2013, which is an 8-month delay. If I remember correctly, their first KS actually took 2 years to fulfill all the tiers.
Pebble Time & Time Steel was charged sometime in March 2015. I did not receive mine until September (admittedly, it was a Time Steel). That is a 6-month delay.
Pebble 2, Time2, etc was charged June 30, 2016, with estimated delivery date of January 2017. If they are able to keep the estimated delivery date, it is still 6 months of delay.

I don't know about your credit card, but mine requires that I file a claim within a maximum of 4 months (depending on the reason).

In most Kickstarter situations, the credit card was already charged months before delivery. For example:

Pebble was charged May 18, 2012. According to their updates, their first shipment was in January 23, 2013, which is an 8-month delay. If I remember correctly, their first KS actually took 2 years to fulfill all the tiers.
Pebble Time & Time Steel was charged sometime in March 2015. I did not receive mine until September (admittedly, it was a Time Steel). That is a 6-month delay.
Pebble 2, Time2, etc was charged June 30, 2016, with estimated delivery date of January 2017. If they are able to keep the estimated delivery date, it is still 6 months of delay.

I don't know about your credit card, but mine requires that I file a claim within a maximum of 4 months (depending on the reason).

In most Kickstarter situations, the credit card was already charged months before delivery. For example:

Pebble was charged May 18, 2012. According to their updates, their first shipment was in January 23, 2013, which is an 8-month delay. If I remember correctly, their first KS actually took 2 years to fulfill all the tiers.
Pebble Time & Time Steel was charged sometime in March 2015. I did not receive mine until September (admittedly, it was a Time Steel). That is a 6-month delay.
Pebble 2, Time2, etc was charged June 30, 2016, with estimated delivery date of January 2017. If they are able to keep the estimated delivery date, it is still 6 months of delay.

I don't know about your credit card, but mine requires that I file a claim within a maximum of 4 months (depending on the reason).

Indeed OLED technology has gone nowhere since its inception around 10 years ago.

As for those foldable displays, yeah, they don't exist either... /s

OK, so not all research is immediately practical, not all technical hurdles are easily solved but at least try to remember the things that have made it to market (and are now so common place it seems like they never didn't exist or the technology was never new) as well as the things we're still waiting on...

Now we just need a faster 5-volt version.

Which your better off getting from someone else entirely (specifically Teensy 3.5, can still use Arduino IDE):

Features specific to Teensy 3.5:
        120 MHz ARM Cortex-M4 with Floating Point Unit
        512K Flash, 192K RAM, 4K EEPROM
        Microcontroller Chip MK64FX512VMD12 (PDF link)
        1 CAN Bus Port
        16 General Purpose DMA Channels
        5 Volt Tolerance On All Digital I/O Pins

Features common to both:
        62 I/O Pins (42 breadboard friendly)
        25 Analog Inputs to 2 ADCs with 13 bits resolution
        2 Analog Outputs (DACs) with 12 bit resolution
        20 PWM Outputs (Teensy 3.6 has 22 PWM)
        USB Full Speed (12 Mbit/sec) Port
        Ethernet mac, capable of full 100 Mbit/sec speed
        Native (4 bit SDIO) micro SD card port
        I2S Audio Port, 4 Channel Digital Audio Input & Output
        14 Hardware Timers
        Cryptographic Acceleration Unit
        Random Number Generator
        CRC Computation Unit
        6 Serial Ports (2 with FIFO & Fast Baud Rates)
        3 SPI Ports (1 with FIFO)
        3 I2C Ports (Teensy 3.6 has a 4th I2C port)
        Real Time Clock

This was the kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... Their main community website is: https://community.mycroft.ai/ They also have a slack here: https://mycroftai.slack.com/me...

There was a Kickstarter to send a copy of the constitution to every member of congress but it wasn't successful. https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

I'm not sure why.

Looking at the Oath We Take for Senators (in its entirety below):

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

One might presume they've already, actually, read the Constitution - since they've just sworn to defend it.

There was a Kickstarter to send a copy of the constitution to every member of congress but it wasn't successful. https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

I'm not sure why.

Windows Media Center... which was free in Windows 7, cost you a bit (if you didn't grab it during the first year) in 8, and is no longer available as part of Windows 10.

Much hope is being held out for the SiliconDust effort to make a working DVR app... however they are a year behind schedule.

http://www.windowscentral.com/...

It took a few tries to get it to work, but I can speak from personal firsthand experience that it works on Win10 the way you remember it, down to the guide data downloads.

With respect to other options, I'm hoping that the PlexDVR app allows for live streaming eventually, if SiliconDust doesn't get their life together.

In what respect?

Like DVB-C, (I assume) all digital video on cable today is done via QAM, usually statically assigned channels, other times switched-digital video (*shuddering*) which is more common for things like video on demand.

It's just that unlike the OTA broadcasters & receiver manufacturers who can all adhere to the pretty clear cut ATSC standard, cable providers (discounting satellite & FIOS) have zero incentive to make sure that the DVR you rented/purchased from them works on another cable system if you move, they just have to support CableCard which works ok if you've got a TiVo or USB, PCIe or Ethernet CableCard tuner... though depending on the mood of the cable company who can set the CCI flag of each individual channel (except usually of the 'must-carry' ones, which may end up with you not being able to view encrypted cable, even if you've got a setup tuner without something like Windows Media Center... which was free in Windows 7, cost you a bit (if you didn't grab it during the first year) in 8, and is no longer available as part of Windows 10.

Much hope is being held out for the SiliconDust effort to make a working DVR app... however they are a year behind schedule.

https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

They don't plug into your phone, but they do plug into yet another battery, that can be charged while you're running on the built in batteries.

Looks like people are starting to think along these lines.
These people have a shell with keyboard and display which uses your smartphone as the processor.
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

They're wanting to do a lot for $5

They already have a successful product

https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

I'll grant that the small team is no longer the industry norm, but suggesting they don't make them like that any more is just preposterous. The biggest game launching this month, No Man's Sky, was originally developed by a team of just five developers. It wasn't until a year or two into development (well after the game was announced and the first trailer shown) that they brought in five more developers. And I was just looking at Prey For the Gods the other day. It's being made by three guys working out of a basement or garage, as I recall. Braid was a two-person job (programmer + artist) with music that was licensed from others. And how could I forget mentioning Cave Story, which was entirely developed by a one-man "team" who did all of the artwork, programming, and music himself?

Pick an indie game, and it's likely built by a small team. They may not all stay small (e.g. Minecraft), but you can only suggest they don't make games like that any more if you start by ignoring the entire indie scene which is doing quite well for itself.

I wonder how Apple would deal with this:
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

Currently I use an envelope that claims to be RFID shielding. No idea if it works or not.

I have backed on Kickstarter an interesting "jamming" solution, Vaultcard, which looks promising.

The current RFID cards - Visa PayWave is one brand - provide the "Track 2" data plus an authentication code from the EMV chip. Quite usable for fraud.

This is the sort of thing that prompted Open Source Ecology's open-source hardware - the vital machines of civilization, built from collaboratively updated open source blueprints, made to a modular design from off-the-shelf parts. Know FreeCAD? Welding? You can make a tractor. I've seen one of the initial prototypes, and it was doing the job.

http://opensourceecology.org/g...
https://www.ted.com/talks/marc...

Their current push is open-source homebuilding, but it builds on all of the machines they've made. https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

In my estimation, this is one of the most important open source projects of all time. This stuff is maintainable and built without planned obsolescence. We need that kind of freedom at the base of civilization.

Paying dividends also screws shareholders because dividends are taxable immediately

Kickstarter has declared itself a "public benefit corporation": https://www.kickstarter.com/bl...

According to TFA that includes to not exploit tax loopholes. Very sad that companies that "just" pay their taxes are regarded as "public benefit corporation", and are not the norm.

They use the infrastructure, they benefit from the state keeping them secure. And they expect to not pay anything for it.

According to TFA, Kickstarter is going down the "never IPO" path.

I was wondering about the steel model myself, but looking at the specs it appears that the Time 2 is steel, though with a standard plastic band out of the box.

The description near the top of "about this project" on the kickstarter says:
"A premium heart rate enable stainless-steel smartwatch with an updated color display"

My current pebble supports standard watch bands, so I'd imagine the Time 2 will also. I've ordered a Time 2 and will just get a nice steel band for it (or take one off of one of my older watches).

Nuclear plants, when running normally, do not kill 28,000 birds a year.

Neither do dogs.

And still people keep those murder machines around the house, post pictures of them, pet them, lick them...
Won't someone please think of the birds?

Come on, you know you want to support these great projects!

https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... (funded)
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... (funded)
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... (funded)
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... (MASSIVELY funded)

Come on, you know you want to support these great projects!

https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... (funded)
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... (funded)
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... (funded)
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... (MASSIVELY funded)

Come on, you know you want to support these great projects!

https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... (funded)
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... (funded)
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... (funded)
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... (MASSIVELY funded)

Come on, you know you want to support these great projects!

https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... (funded)
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... (funded)
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... (funded)
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... (MASSIVELY funded)

I backed a set of playing cards on Kickstarter called Asylum playing cards.
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...
Unfortunately, the project owner, Ed Nash, disappeared with the money and failed to deliver the cards.

After some amount of drama, it turned out his artist had long finished the art for the cards, and nothing should be holding them up. All Nash needed to do was pay USPCC to print them up. Instead of doing that, he stopped tending the Kickstarter, sporadically promising the cards before ultimately disappearing. His artist had no idea what happened.

A backer with a legal background got several backers in Washington state together and was able to bring the situation to the attention of the attorney general. Eventually, a court date was set, and Nash never showed. The state ordered him to pay restitution to the backers in Washington, plus civil penalties, plus court costs. In the end, he came out on the hook for more money than he brought in from the entire Kickstarter.
There are several articles about it. The first one to show up on Google: http://www.polygon.com/2015/9/...
Not too long after that, people started receiving their playing cards in the mail. I think Nash decided it would be cheaper to finally deliver the cards than to risk facing more state courts.

Bluetooth keyboard is only OK as long as it is TOHKBD style - that is integrated with the phone as a single piece of hardware with no extra battery charging. And then the bluetooth part is only an implementation detail, probably a useless one as if they can connect the power wires they could connect even the signals. Keyboard shortcuts are always faster than any mouse/swipe/whatever crap. And no voice typing really makes sense on a busy street. Besides that I cannot imagine to voice type a bash command with all its backquotes. Typing on integrated QWERTY worked great for me on Nokia 9000i, Nokia 9110 and Nokia 900, I have no idea why it can no longer work. I need to get the job done, I do not need a star-trek-looking useless gadget.

So if the guy who Kickstarted a movie about paint drying applied to have it shown at Tribeca and they decline to show it, they're censoring him? I wouldn't call it that -- I would call it choosing to show movies they believe are of greater entertainment, educational, or artistic value.

Voice recognition, without cloud, now available as an Arduino shield.

Indeed, the Peachy Printer is incredibly late. I've always thought their "floating" idea was a bit strange. At least they're not using the sound output of a computer to control the laser anymore.

If you want to see amazing follow-ups about the production of a Kickstarted 3D printer, look at the Tiko 3D printer.

. . . .of a 2013 (which still hasn't shipped). The only real innovation here seems to be the feed system (pedestal-pull rather than float the resin on salt-water) and a wider variety of resins. . .

In somehow on-topic news, the OLO 3D printer launched at the same time as the Apple Keynote:
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

It's somehow on-topic because it requires a smartphone.

And congratulations to the 238 people who got the easter egg pledge. You bastards.

The link in the summary is in the process of being slashdotted... Here is the link to the Kickstarter page:
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

Far more interesting would be to have a program for Codex.

Quick comparison
1. Each person starts with a very small deck (10 cards; there is no death from deck-out, you just shuffle and continue), and a very large sideboard (2 copies of each of 36 cards in three groups.)
2. Each turn until you have 10 "workers" (think mana sources), you must add two cards from your sideboard, and probably want to convert your worst hand card into a worker
3. Almost everything you do is a tradeoff of present resources vs future resources. For example, you draw 2 cards more than you discard; discard 3, draw 5 is normal. Bring out a lot of units and spells, and you might discard 1, draw 3 instead.
4. The starting bonus for player 2 is large enough that you would actually choose it fairly often. (+1 worker -- that's +1 gold per turn for the whole game, and 2 less forced adds to your deck).

Note that item 1 means that "building your deck" isn't the pre-game game with a meta-game of "what does the internet say are the best decks"; you have to choose how to react to your opponent's choices and openings.

Most deck builds will have a key strategy or two for winning which establishes a simple order of play. The only thing that really makes MTG difficult to play is the same factors that are at play in other card games where players hold a hand, namely luck of the draw and bluffing.

Actually, since the deck here is built as you go, there is no "single key strategy". There are some things that your opponent's cards won't be able to do, so there will be some things in your cards that will just never get used in this battle -- but of the remaining choices, there's a lot of choices to make.

Equally, since your whole "active play deck" is generally two turns or less of draws (typically in the 9 to 14 card range, with total draws in the 4-7 cards per turn range), luck is reduced -- you can add two of a wanted card before you shuffle, so you have a very good chance of getting one of them each time. Some colors can eliminate that luck -- purple can recover cards from their discard, green can get some specific animals directly, etc.

Interestingly, of the 6 colors, 3 are very similar to their magic colors (green, red, black); one is similar (blue; control/denial/illusion); one is not very similar (white), and one is ... well, purple is past, present, and future -- and future is protoss from star craft. Unlike M:tG, mono-color is very playable -- each color has a complete set of options and potential actions.

(It's also not collectable -- https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... Kickstarter has ended, but you can order on backerkit).

These days basically everyone in the gaming industry agrees that the world would be a better place if Konami finally dies in a fire.

#Fuckonami, started by Jim Sterling (Think Moviebob, but for Games) has gotten trendendous pickup right up to the audience having a solid reason to Boo! Konami at the Game Awards - they legally prevented from Hideo Kojima from recieving his own award (No joke!).

The borderline insane bullshit Konami has done in recent years is bedazzling and let's even non-industry observers wonder why a company is so hell bent on destroying its reputation and ip. Hideo Kojima has since moved on and Konami is shunned as the semi-dangerous nutbag bum in gaming town by just about anybody.

Bottom line:
If you want to mod a commercial game, steer clear of Konami.

I rather like mine, although unfortunately just like the Fairphone 2 here, it doesn't support the frequencies my wireless carrier uses and as such is completely useless to me as a cellphone. Alas!

Agreed.

I can also get most of this functionality using an old computer (700Mhz PIII, 500MB Ram), a Fax/Voice/CallerID modem and a free ware program (Phone Tray V1.0) with unlimited phone number call blocking capability to intercept my calls. I turn off the ringers on my phone and let them talk to my answering machine.

For added points I can waste their time by playing a wav file that makes it appear that I can't hear them.

Best of all, it was a one-time cost.

He's offering a service for the masses. From his kickstarter page...

"We are asking for funding to build the first version of a consumer-friendly monthly service"

Great! Another monthly bill to help reclaim my privacy!

The Pine A64 just exceeded its kick starter funding. It sounds very promising for cheap 4k media boxes. https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

Well, fairly promising anyway. It can only do 4k at 30 fps. That's fine for digital signage, where the base ($15) model should mop up. It's not as exciting for a media player. I backed the 2GB model, but I'm not planning to do 4k output, only 1920x1200 or less.

The Pine A64 just exceeded its kick starter funding. It sounds very promising for cheap 4k media boxes. https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...