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I think you're just being cynical. They're a small group whose specialties clearly do not include marketing, and they're perhaps overly fond of trendy video effects, like the blurring you mentioned. There are some clear close-ups of the objects from the video in the December Kickstarter update, however, and an earlier update from November included photos of some additional prints.

None of this is to say that the Peachy is intended to compete with multi-thousand-dollar printers, because it isn't. It may or may not have the resolution for the object in the article; either way, you'd run into issues due to the size. The sample prints for the Peachy are tiny. The quality is quite a bit better than one would think from the image you posted, however, which is all I intended to say. It's pretty remarkable, really, for a device they plan to sell for only $100.

I think you're just being cynical. They're a small group whose specialties clearly do not include marketing, and they're perhaps overly fond of trendy video effects, like the blurring you mentioned. There are some clear close-ups of the objects from the video in the December Kickstarter update, however, and an earlier update from November included photos of some additional prints.

None of this is to say that the Peachy is intended to compete with multi-thousand-dollar printers, because it isn't. It may or may not have the resolution for the object in the article; either way, you'd run into issues due to the size. The sample prints for the Peachy are tiny. The quality is quite a bit better than one would think from the image you posted, however, which is all I intended to say. It's pretty remarkable, really, for a device they plan to sell for only $100.

Peachy Printer is a $100 UV printer.
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

The Veronica Mars kickstarter promised "You will receive a digital version of the movie within a few days of the movieâ(TM)s theatrical debut..."

A digital version. Last time I checked, while most people may dislike UltraViolet, it is a digital version.

Actually, this is where you're wrong. Ultraviolet does not let you "receive" a digital version. Since it's completely streamed, you get it a portion at a time and your viewing platform is not going to hold onto the entire thing as you watch. So you never "receive" the digital copy of the film. Just pieces that you borrow for a period of time.

wait a minute...I'm late to the game here but let me make sure I understand the story.

1. Warner...frickin' Warner Bros, which made $12B in revenue last year, parent company is Time frickin' Warner...used Kickstarter to fund a movie?
2. After raising $5M on kickstarter they used that to fund the movie
3. The movie, after it was released and they started making money, then basically paid back part of the kickstarter because they are reneging on the kickstarter deal?
4. PROFIT!!!

so basically they played the system to get an interest-free loan.

I thought kickstarter was really for people who couldn't conventionally raise funds?

Well, ok. I just read the Kickstarter FAQ. They don't really say anything like that. Its for any creative project. https://www.kickstarter.com/he...

So yeah, I guess even if you are a $12Billion company you can use kickstarter instead of fronting your own money.

[...] perhaps the original investors can sue for their percentage of ownership of the entire profits of the operation.

Unlikely, given that this is in Kickstarter's Terms of Use:

Kickstarter does not offer refunds. A Project Creator is not required to grant a Backer’s request for a refund unless the Project Creator is unable or unwilling to fulfill the reward.

Project Creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill.

Project Creators may cancel or refund a Backer’s pledge at any time and for any reason, and if they do so, are not required to fulfill the reward.

So, basically, offering a refund is in line with the original terms of the agreement, meaning that backers have no grounds on which to sue, since WB is technically upholding their end of the contract. And regarding something else you said:

They ARE investors.

They may be "investors" in the colloquial sense of the word, but they have no claim to ownership, since the Guidelines make it quite clear that:

Creators cannot offer equity or financial incentives (ownership, share of profits, repayment/loans, cash-value equivalents, etc).

So, long story short, WB sucks, but the backers have no recourse except to name-and-shame WB if WB is offering them a refund in place of the promised reward. They have no claim to ownership or a share of the profits that the film makes.

[...] perhaps the original investors can sue for their percentage of ownership of the entire profits of the operation.

Unlikely, given that this is in Kickstarter's Terms of Use:

Kickstarter does not offer refunds. A Project Creator is not required to grant a Backer’s request for a refund unless the Project Creator is unable or unwilling to fulfill the reward.

Project Creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill.

Project Creators may cancel or refund a Backer’s pledge at any time and for any reason, and if they do so, are not required to fulfill the reward.

So, basically, offering a refund is in line with the original terms of the agreement, meaning that backers have no grounds on which to sue, since WB is technically upholding their end of the contract. And regarding something else you said:

They ARE investors.

They may be "investors" in the colloquial sense of the word, but they have no claim to ownership, since the Guidelines make it quite clear that:

Creators cannot offer equity or financial incentives (ownership, share of profits, repayment/loans, cash-value equivalents, etc).

So, long story short, WB sucks, but the backers have no recourse except to name-and-shame WB if WB is offering them a refund in place of the promised reward. They have no claim to ownership or a share of the profits that the film makes.

The Veronica Mars kickstarter promised "You will receive a digital version of the movie within a few days of the movieâ(TM)s theatrical debut..."

A digital version. Last time I checked, while most people may dislike UltraViolet, it is a digital version.

Now, I understand the servers got hammered and there were issues with the process and Warner Brothers offered a refund so people could buy the movie from a competing digital store but they fulfilled their promise or made efforts to rectify the situation when their servers failed under the load.

Also, they made no promise of DRM free. Doing a search of the Veronica Mars Kickstarter page, I find exactly zero mentions of DRM so why you would think they owe you a DRM free movie is beyond me.

You're clearly itching to pick a fight and begging to justify torrenting the movie rather than paying for it but, sorry, you haven't cited so much as one valid complaint. They offered a digital version of the movie and they delivered a digital version of the movie. Users that encountered issues were offered a refund so they could obtain the movie elsewhere since their servers weren't up to the task rather than WB just pocketing the money and saying "well, try again another time".

I see absolutely nothing nefarious here.

Much geek rage about nothing.

I understand the need to recoup some funds for developing this, but..

To add to your but, I give you:

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

why bother when the desktop version is free?
What does the metro version really get you?

I asked that question elsewhere, and the response I got was - after I explicitly said people shouldn't start talking about 'touch interface', considering you can slap a touch interface on a desktop app just fine and you would never be able to tell - 'touch interface'.

Aside from that, though.. Windows RT devices - since you can only install out of the app store on those, and that means you have to develop for that.

Do RT users really matter?

Maybe. Apparently there are some people enthusiastic about the Surface that wouldn't consider just getting a Surface Pro. Of course, an RT version is exactly what hasn't happened. Maybe developing the app for x86 first is easier and then porting to RT should be a breeze - I don't know. But there's certainly no good reason whatsoever to be using the Metro ('modern', whatever they want to call it) version of VLC on a desktop/laptop, with or without a touchscreen, especially when you keep in mind that this version is quite buggy and incomplete.

There's Kingdom Come: Deliverance. And there was also Cradle, but it failed to get crowd-funded.

There's Kingdom Come: Deliverance. And there was also Cradle, but it failed to get crowd-funded.

I wonder how long before we accept that we will have to wear batteries to power the MRI that reads out brainwaves and turns them into text. It will happen.

Why wait?

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

If we would have an Android service that would allow only downloads but not uploads, users would not accept so easily apps with Full Network Access Permissions. Coincendantly I am working at a sollution. Please excuse the shameless ad here: https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

Selling millions - Not if it can only fit on one bike type. Fix that and maybe.

It works on many bike types ( not just rentable citi-bike with the triangle dock)

You're thinking too small. Think a bit more radically, and you'll eventually land on the idea of an electric velomobile, which is already readily available. Plus, it also offers better aerodynamics than your proposal, more comfortable seating, and shelter from the elements, in addition to the benefits you cited. Alternatively, you can think even more radically and get something like the ELF, which was successfully funded on Kickstarter about a year ago, adds in shletered cargo space, and has solar panels to recharge the battery for you on-the-go.

...doesn't even appear to mention the official page of the crowdfunding campaign

A direct link the the page...? You must be new here.

There is a very interesting project underway to recreate the ZX Spectrum and more.

No, there isn't. Certainly not "more" - I don't know where that's come from.

This is the link you're looking for. The one that tells you that, actually, what's been kickstarted is a bluetooth keyboard in the style of a ZX spectrum.

Speaking of that link, though, what's with the shitty JPEG details page? Don't we has text on the internets now?

The people behind the Kickstarter seem to be defaulting on agreements to pay royalties to the developers of the games they're bundling, and not really responding well to questions asking them why, which isn't a great start.

The article doesn't even appear to mention the official page of the crowdfunding campaign, which is this Kickstarter campaign. It turns out not to be a hardware recreation of the Spectrum's logic, just a rubber keyboard for use with emulators.

Or This. Eye-Mirror seems to be the coolest method of doing 360 degree video with a single camera! https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

I've been playing WoW since before the first expansion and it just doesn't do it for me any more, maybe the new expansion will be interesting. There's a lot of stuff that I really like in Vanguard much more than WoW, but Sony is sunsetting it at the end of July. I was really interested in the Pantheon Kickstarter, but I doubt it's going to get funded as it's under $500K of an $800K goal with three days to go. So it's Elder Scrolls Online will be the next thing that'll interest me, especially since it's multi-platform and I run Mac.

Standalone, I do a fair amount of Civ 5, though I find it easy enough, though tedious, to win. I'm planning on trying Sid's Pirates and Railroad games, just got them from the Humble Bundle sale. Tabletop, my fav far and above is Flash Point: Fire Rescue, I also received Game of Death which I'm really looking forward to playing. For RPGs, I'm loving reading up on Night's Black Agents, awesome game world.

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

The Peachy Printer is $100

A sleek, multi-channel, wireless headset that monitors your brain activity and translates EEG into meaningful data you can understand.

Funnily enough, you can: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aiorobotics/zeus-the-worlds-first-all-in-one-3d-copy-machine

It's a bit confusing because the summary links the version 1 - the version 3 (that you can control) has a tiny rudder at the back: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/393053146/powerup-30-smartphone-controlled-paper-airplane

That's where this comes in. Call it a trackball for your feet (although it's actually concave) with added thigh-strap.
Then there's also projects working on representation of your body in the 3d world, including relative position of your various body parts, like Stem. Combine these three and everything first-person should be quite immersive without you falling through a window, tripping over garden tiles or being run over by the school bus. As long as you're okay with poor feedback when you bump into something virtual or slice through your favourite adversary with a katana of your choice. They didn't fix that part to satisfaction yet.
With Oculus Rift alone, your immersion will only be adequate for vehicle simulation, racing games and maybe some top-down strategy.

That's where this comes in. Call it a trackball for your feet (although it's actually concave) with added thigh-strap.
Then there's also projects working on representation of your body in the 3d world, including relative position of your various body parts, like Stem. Combine these three and everything first-person should be quite immersive without you falling through a window, tripping over garden tiles or being run over by the school bus. As long as you're okay with poor feedback when you bump into something virtual or slice through your favourite adversary with a katana of your choice. They didn't fix that part to satisfaction yet.
With Oculus Rift alone, your immersion will only be adequate for vehicle simulation, racing games and maybe some top-down strategy.

They're already here.

http://www.kickstarter.com/canada

really crazy, impossible things like selling an educational chemistry set.

You mean like this successful Kickstarter project launched by the sconce store H.M.S. Beagle?

Heirloom Chemistry Set

Thanks to the war on drugs, the war on terror, the war on fireworks, the war on common sense and various other wars, its becoming harder and harder for amateurs who want to do chemistry in their own home/shed/backyard.
Chemical suppliers wont sell to amateurs and hobbyists.

The A C Gilbert Heirloom Chemistry Set project was fully funded three days ago. ($149,000)

H.M.S. Beagle has about 600 chemicals for sale online. H.M.S. Beagle Publications: Materials Safety Data Sheets

United Nuclear is a rich resource for the amateur scientist. Radioactive Isotopes. Chemistry Experiments

-----

Chemistry Supply Websites

because kickstarter doesn't allow obviously bad projects

Do you really want me to make a list of all the bullshit projects that have shown up on Kickstarter in the last few months?

There's no guarantee that a failed project will give me my money back

No guarantee that a successful project will ship anything either.

$700,000 for this?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coolminiornot/zombicide

My ASS

Chemistry sets were effectively banned a long time ago as a side effect of the war on drugs.

This fully funded Kickstarter project is an authentic recreation of an A C Gilbert chemistry set from the 1920s to 1940s.

Chemical List Arranged in the order originally published by the A.C. Gilbert Company along with their item number and the 1936 pricing)

Heirloom Chemistry Set

Adam and Jamie on mythbusters seem to have a blast, pun intended.

In seriousness, I disagree. At least not to the extent of nuclear physics. Look at DIY bio research.

Thingm has a similar series of products called blink(1). It runs for about $30, but it is not widely available now. They recently finished .

Argh, correct link for the blink(1) Kickstarter - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thingm/blink1-the-usb-rgb-led

Purchase link: http://buy.thingm.com/blink1 (out of stock, was $30)

The BlinkStick mentioned in the original is $16

The Dream Cheeky was $10 (I think I paid 9 on a woot sale)

The HarvardX equivalent has already started with "Fundamentals of Neuroscience" It is a basic neuroscience course with a twist, they succeeded funding a Kickstarter campaign in collaboration with BackyardBrains to supply a hundred spiker boxes to enable a citizen-science approach to neuroscience

The presentation is also way better than what I have experienced on Coursera so far.

Gotcha. Regulatory issues aside, there are chips that do I/Q upconverting. I've always wanted to get one and play with it. They're actually becoming commodity hardware, potentially illegal as they may be.

This device seems to be able to bypass the "enumeration" thing and allow them to charge at max rate It also acts as a firewall to keep the USB port from downloading data from your device.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1137339450/lockedusb-adapter-usb-charger-firewall-and-power-o

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/occipital/structure-sensor-capture-the-world-in-3d

3D sensor in a phone is a no-brainer once you see the possibilities.

This is going to be the next big thing in iPhone 6. 300mil is cheap for the next good reason for everyone to upgrade their iCrap.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pimoroni/picade-the-arcade-cabinet-kit-for-your-raspberry-p

The first one wasn't very good. It's in pieces at the moment because I'm rebuilding it inside one of these: https://www.google.es/search?q=invadercade&tbm=isch (I got one dirt cheap)

I also recently discovered this: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/697708033/hdmipi-affordable-9-high-def-screen-for-the-raspbe so it might be on hold until February. That screen is just perfect for it :-(

I coded the game myself (originally on Arduino believe it or not). I used the Space Invaders ROM disassembly as a base so the gameplay is 100% true to the original. You can play it if you've got a gameduino...

They are a bit late to the party. The CastAR kickstarter is finishing tomorrow and will be shipping next year, a few months before the consumer version of the Oculus Rift.

Which is probably a fair enough comment, given we are not talking about some vast multinational company here.

But compare it to the Kickstarter page:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console

Hackers welcome. Have at it: It's easy to root (and rooting won't void your warranty). Everything opens with standard screws. Hardware hackers can create their own peripherals, and connect via USB or Bluetooth. You want our hardware design? Let us know. We might just give it to you. Surprise us!

After people began calling Al Sutton out over this, he made things even worse by implying that root access was a priviledge and Ouya hadn't promised much of anything (instead attempting to compare the console's openness to that of consoles you can buy at Gamestop).

As for "Open"; Well, a year or so ago the idea of going into a gaming centric store like GameStop or Game, buying a console, taking it home, writing a game on it, and publishing it without spending big money on development kits, licensing, and the like was pretty much non-existant. That's where OUYA is open; It's open to anyone to write games and apps without having to pay dev kit and licensing fees, it's open in that once you have your console you can code for it.
The reason you can still simply get root access is that I've seen people want to tinker beyond what most users would do. OUYA could stick to what was originally put on the Kickstarter page and take away root from non-devkits, but I, for one, would be against that, because I've seen that people do use it constructively and responsibly, and not everyone bricks their device then raises a support ticket to try and get OUYA to fix it.

So yes, I'll stick to calling it "shocking."

PS. A functioning non-OS-dependant recovery mode isn't just important for hackers. It could also be the difference between a faulty official update merely inconveniencing you, or outright bricking your console.

Don't forget about Star Trek: Renegades, which was funded through both Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Tum Russ ("Tuvok") is directing the pilot, and the cast looks reasonably impressive.

You should all do some homework before throwing out all this prejudice. Flow based programming has been successfully used in many implementations ever since it's invention in the 70's at IBM. One Canadian bank has been running (and maintaining) an FBP program continuously for over 40 years!

You are right that FBP (or something very close) can be found in successful systems such as Unix pipes, LabView and Apple quartz composer. If you read FBP inventor J P Morrisons canonical book on the topic (linked below) though, you will notice that there are some details to the FBP specifications that should be observed, in order to gain all the full benefits of a full-featured FBP implementation.

Some homework suggestions for you all:

1. Why not start with NoFlo creator, Henri Bergius' excellent post, "NoFlo Kickstarter, the hacker's perspective":
      http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/noflo-kickstarter-launch/
2. Watch the intro video to FBP and NoFlo:
      http://vimeo.com/72065207
3. Read up/watch some more on the NoFlo (finished) kickstarter page:
      http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/noflo/noflo-development-environment
4. Read up a bit on FBP inventor J P Morrisons website:
      http://jpaulmorrison.com/
5. Join the discussion in the FBP group:
      https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/flow-based-programming
6. Join the FBP Google+ community:
      http://gplus.to/flowbased
7. Last but not least, read the book!
      http://tinyurl.com/fbpbook

I don't think it's shady at all that they're asking for 1.1m. Consider Mighty No. 9, where they asked for 900k, developed by veterans of both the industry and the genre (who have insanely strong credentials, like Keiji Inafune, who was Capcom's Head of Production until 2010 and co-created Megaman).

You do have to consider that studios that go with Kickstarter tend not to be massive development studios like you see with EA-style development. Bioware, for example, has about 800 people spread across 5 studios, so in the ballpark of 160 people per studio. A budget of $1m doesn't go very far in that environment, but Cyan only has 40 employees.

The web site and the Kickstarter site have all the details...
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/omate/omate-truesmart-water-resistant-standalone-smartwa

This Kicksarter Looks interesting.

Well, at least one person's trying to fix it.

Dude's (rather successfully) Kickstarting a LOGO-esque boardgame for the purpose of teaching kids the fundamentals of programming. He says it's for 3+, and has played it with his own 4-year old kids. Because it's pictorial, they don't even need to be able to read to start learning basic logic.