$500k "Energy-Harvesting" Kickstarter Scam Unfolding Right Now

Thanks for the tip! by jtownatpunk.net · 2014-06-24 00:07 · Score: 4, Funny

I pledged $120.

Re:Thanks for the tip! by thaylin · 2014-06-24 00:24 · Score: 4, Insightful

Or maybe he thinks that when people post no proof of their claims, all data they have provided have been refuted by pretty much all sources, and the people post nothing to contradict those sources it probably is a scam.

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Re:Thanks for the tip! by Charliemopps · 2014-06-24 00:35 · Score: 2, Interesting

Or maybe he thinks that when people post no proof of their claims, all data they have provided have been refuted by pretty much all sources, and the people post nothing to contradict those sources it probably is a scam.
Or not. I'm sorry, I don't trust kick starter campaigns. I don't donate to them, nor would I ever. But, to say what they're claiming to be able to do is impossible? That's clearly wrong. I could build an EM harvester in my livingroom in an afternoon. This isn't even that complicated technology. Can they fit in something the size of a dog tag? I dunno, I'm not a miniaturization expert. Attach that to a small battery, the bluetooth locater thing are in IC's everywhere. The only question in my mind is the size thing, so to claim this is an obvious scam is patently false.
Re:Thanks for the tip! by Mr+D+from+63 · 2014-06-24 00:41 · Score: 3, Insightful

To not see the glaring red flags of scamminess is patently blind.
Re:Thanks for the tip! by jythie · 2014-06-24 00:43 · Score: 5, Insightful

Thing is, it is being called a scam by people who are familiar with miniaturization and physics.

A classic element of pseudoscience and scams like this is to take something that has some small connection with physics but the numbers are so far off the engineering actually is impossible. This particular one is actually a pretty old 'free energy' thing, with people claiming you can collect usable amounts of energy from ambient signals. But the numbers, even though yes they are non-zero, are so tiny as to be useless.
Re:Thanks for the tip! by NotDrWho · 2014-06-24 00:50 · Score: 5, Insightful

I suspect that many scammer Kickstarters have a mass of pledges just as fake as yours--only not intended for humor, but rather "self-giving" to create buzz and give the impression of legitimacy. I doubt very seriously that most of that $500,000 they've raised on this particular campaign is real.
But this does raise a real point. Kickstarter needs some basic donor protections and means of reporting scams. Otherwise they'll just devolve in a feeding ground for con men and no one will take any project posted there seriously.

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SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Re:Thanks for the tip! by Jason+Levine · 2014-06-24 01:19 · Score: 4, Insightful

Forget civilian operated drones. Look at civilian operated cars. Take a glance at the kinds of drivers you see on the road every day and then ask yourself: "Do I really trust these people with a flying vehicle moving in three dimensions?"
Once we get self-driving cars, we might stand a chance of self-flying cars. Until then, though, flying cars would be a safety nightmare!

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My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Re:Thanks for the tip! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-24 01:22 · Score: 5, Informative

As somebody familiar with RF engineering, I'd say this is obviously a scam. And it's not a miniaturization issue. It's a power density issue. Yes, I could build something that would gather energy like they're saying. And with the power draw of a BT device, I bet every 10 days or so, I'd have harvested enough energy to run it for an hour.
Fact is, the RF energy needed to be harvested to do even small amounts of work would cook you if you got in the way. The amounts that are just free floating around you from cell phones for example is around -60dBm. Or -90dB. 1dB is 1 watt, -10dB is .1 watt, -20dB is .001 watt, so the typical cell phone signal is .000000001 watt by the time you receive it. And if anybody is going to try to tell me that you're going to power anything off of that sort of energy....yeah, but no. Just no.
Re:Thanks for the tip! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-24 01:35 · Score: 3, Informative

It isn't a question of whether you can fit an EM harvester in something the size of a dogtag, you absolutely can.
But an EM harvester in something the size of a dog tag is limited by its size to harvesting energy that is impinges on that dog tag sized harvester. It is therefore simple to determine the maximum EM energy that can be harvested by a dog tag sized harvester. When you compare that maximum amount of energy with the energy requirements of those commercially available bluetooth chips and assume everything is 100% efficient you end up with something that doesn't harvest enough energy to do what it says it can do.
When you put more realistic constraints on the device, such as the inability to harvest 100% of the energy that impinges on the device, leakage currents and the like then you don't need to wonder any longer whether or not the device can work as advertised, it can't.
Does that make it a scam or the product of someone who sincerely believes, despite the laws of physics, that it will work? That would be a legal question but to the purchaser it makes no difference, they aren't going to get what they paid for.
Re:Thanks for the tip! by flyingsquid · 2014-06-24 01:41 · Score: 5, Funny

I'm in complete agreement here. We desperately need some way to tell legitimate Kickstarter campaigns from frauds. For that matter, the entire internet is full of scams and con-men waiting to take your money. That's why my team has developed iScam, the revolutionary new fraud-protection device.
Inside every iScam is a tiny induction coil that is powered by negative energy. When negative energy released by a scam such as this one activates the device, it generates a current which in turn activates a blinking LED, with the frequency of the blinking being proportional to the negative energy field. Simply aim the device at your computer screen, or hold it up to the phone when you get that too-good-to-be-true offer, or even point it at your lover... if there's any deception in the area, iScam will be activated and you'll be alerted!
Pledge just $15 and we'll send you one device. For $25 we'll send you two. For $100, we'll send you an improved prototype with even more sensitive scam-detection algorithms. And for the especially gullible-those of you who have lost thousands or tens of thousands of dollars to scammers before- you need the top-level security provided by iScam Pro, which has a more powerful induction circuit, both increasing the range of the device and allowing it to detect even the tiniest fib! Pledge just $999 and we'll send you an iScam Pro. With our patented technology, you'll be safer than ever. And best of all, it's all environmentally friendly and fair-trade, with 10% of all proceeds going to benefit orphaned pandas.
Re:Thanks for the tip! by thedonger · 2014-06-24 01:46 · Score: 4, Funny

Or not. I'm sorry, I don't trust kick starter campaigns.
Right? I gave Toad the Wet Sprocket $50 for their new record. Then it arrived as double LP with four bonus tracks! If I wanted bonus tracks I would asked for freakin' bonus tracks! And don't get me started about that photo essay book I bought into. It was so good I almost cried. If I want to feel stuff I'll give to an Indiegogo campaign!

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Re:Thanks for the tip! by bitt3n · 2014-06-24 01:50 · Score: 4, Funny

I pledged $120.
Same here. I don't know what this tinfoil hat wearing idiot who came up with the conspiracy theory in the summary is thinking. After all, dowsing rods have been working since biblical times, and I can't recall swapping out the double A's in mine recently, can you? Similarly, the ADE 651 bomb detector, which contains no power source, and relies on a similar principle, has been protecting troops in Iraq and Pakistan for years. Do you really think already impoverished governments would spend tens of millions of dollars on something so vital to the lives of its armed forces if it didn't work? OP should remove this libelous screed before he finds he's on the wrong side of a lawsuit.

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how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
Re:Thanks for the tip! by SuricouRaven · 2014-06-24 02:42 · Score: 2

Don't waste your money. Once the solar roadways hit mass production we won't need diesel any more.
Re:Thanks for the tip! by Charliemopps · 2014-06-24 02:47 · Score: 2

Ok,
So I actually looked up the components you'd need to do this.
Here's the first low power Bluetooth chip I came across... the FIRST:
https://www.csrsupport.com/dow...
It needs 16mA while transmitting.
1mA while idle
900nA while in sleep mode
The size is well with their specs.
The we have the harvester:
Again, the first IC I could find:
http://www.powercastco.com/PDF...
It's about 1/2" square, so it's a little big.
But it's already designed to power sensors.
The first chip already has a capacitor in it.
This even has use cases in the whitepaper describing something very close to what this kickstarter wants to do!
So the reciever charges the capacitor. When the capacitor gets enough charge to transmit, the Bluetooth chip does exactly that. So it's not a continuous connection. Based on the amount of RF in the area, it will transmit more or less often.
It appears, based on my back of an envelope math, it would have enough RF energy to operate continuously at at least 5meters from your typical Wifi AP or router. The further away you got, the fewer pings you'd get. But given our almost ubiquitous wifi coverage now, I'm pretty sure it would work.
Since your most likely device for connecting to it would be your cellphone, it's a pretty simple use case to say it would work like this:
You put the tag on your keys or cat
You install their "Find my tag" app
When you can't find the keys or cat, you open the app
The app TURNS ON the wifi in your phone, to power the tag.
You walk around looking, when you get near the tag, the wifi FROM YOUR PHONE will charge it.
All the tag does at that point is start beeping. That's it. You follow the sound.
The "I've lost you" signal is likely incredibly tiny.
This is all assuming they are even using the real Bluetooth standard. Who knows.
I do not know if this is a scam or not. It very well maybe. But the premise is entirely plausible if you just think about what they're really trying to do.
Re:Thanks for the tip! by Zalbik · 2014-06-24 03:16 · Score: 2

You're saying its a scam, what's your argument?
They claim in their technical brief that the energy harvestable from a typical home wi-fi is 10dBm.
This is off by at least 3 orders of magnitude (i.e. they claim at least 1000 times more than is actually available).
Re:Thanks for the tip! by Zalbik · 2014-06-24 03:24 · Score: 4, Funny

I'm confused. I have one of your early prototypes, and when I aim it at your post it blinks like crazy!
That means your post is a scam. But if your post is a scam, my device shouldn't be blinking. But my device is blinking...so your post must be a scam.....but...
Re:Thanks for the tip! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-24 03:25 · Score: 4, Informative

It appears, based on my back of an envelope math, it would have enough RF energy to operate continuously at at least 5meters from your typical Wifi AP or router.
5 meters from a maximum 1 W transmitter gives you 3 mW / m^2. The chip you selected runs at least 1.8 V, so it needs ~30 mW when active.... hence you would need an antenna with an area of 10 m^2 to get that type of power to run continuously off a Wifi AP. When idle, you would still need an antenna with ~0.5 m^2, so like 70 cm on a side square. Heck, if your device was an inch square, it would barely be able to power the bluetooth in sleep mode, with no power left over to charge up to allow it to briefly transmit.
And this is ignoring things like the antenna not being able to capture 100% of the power going through it, and that your harvesting chip isn't 100% efficient. The harvester chip gives a minimum RF input of -10 dBm, which means you would still need an antenna 20 cm square to work at that level 5 m from a wifi AP. And this is assuming your AP is working at full 1 W power continuously (In EU they would be limited to 100 mW, for example). If you are trying to power it off the bluetooth of a cell phone, most are class 2 with a maximum power of 2.5 mW, which wouldn't be enough. You have the main cell transmitter which can be up to a watt, but it isn't typically running at full power and has a small duty cycle when not making calls. This also assumes your tag is out in the open, with nothing on top or even behind it that would attenuate the signal, in which case making it brightly colored might be all that is needed...
Re:Thanks for the tip! by puppetman · 2014-06-24 03:44 · Score: 3, Interesting

I'm embarrassed to say that I pledged $70. I thought being on Kickstarter provided some level of protection against this, and that no one would be so brazen as to hijack people's names and credentials, and post them a popular website to promote their claims.
Thanks, Slashdot. I promise I'll be more careful next time.
If someone tells me the PowerUp 3.0 remote-controlled airplane is a hoax, I'll be devastated...
Re:Thanks for the tip! by SourceFrog · 2014-06-24 03:54 · Score: 2

Scams aren't limited to crowdfunding systems .. investors are scammed by traditionally structured BS companies all the time too.
A good way to help limit fraud would be jailtime if you're caught creating such a scam, but then, that would go against our cultural tradition of letting white-collar financial fraudsters get off scott-free on anything they do.

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My other UID is three digits.
Re:Thanks for the tip! by fredprado · 2014-06-24 05:29 · Score: 3, Insightful

Exactly. We don't need regulations, we need consequences.
Re:Thanks for the tip! by AmiMoJo · 2014-06-24 19:33 · Score: 2

Email KIckstarter and ask them to take your pledge back. Email Amazon and ask them to cancel the payment. Contact your credit card company and ask them to do a chargeback. Don't just accept being ripped off, fight back!

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Thanks for the tip! by spydir31 · 2014-06-25 03:00 · Score: 3, Informative

There's no need to Email anyone, Since the funding isn't over he can just cancel his pledge.

This fake too? by 0dugo0 · 2014-06-24 00:08 · Score: 2, Interesting

http://abc.cs.washington.edu/

Re:This fake too? by OzPeter · 2014-06-24 00:26 · Score: 5, Insightful

http://abc.cs.washington.edu/
Just because harvesting of RF energy is a legitimate field does not mean that this product is genuine.
Or to give you a car analogy, just because internal combustion engines are used to drive cars does not mean that you can run a 4 litre V8 engine at full power and get 100 miles to the gallon.

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I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Re:This fake too? by OzPeter · 2014-06-24 00:46 · Score: 5, Insightful

ok, WHY is it disingenuous? What about their claims don't make sense then? They plan to make a product that is clearly possible, so why is it a scam?
Take a look at the google doc. It has a lot of technical information as to why the claims of *this* kickstarter project are suspect.

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I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Re:This fake too? by AmiMoJo · 2014-06-24 01:01 · Score: 2

Look at the size of the antennas they are using, and compare them to the size of the iFind tags. Note how the legit project is going for much lower frequencies where there is much more energy available (hence the larger antenna), while iFind are trying to harvest intentionally low power wifi on a band with poor propagation. Look at the size of the PCBs and the size of the energy storage available in each design.
Wireless energy harvesting is an exciting field, but it can't do what these guys are claiming I'm afraid.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:This fake too? by Rei · 2014-06-24 01:11 · Score: 3, Interesting

Or to give you a car analogy, just because internal combustion engines are used to drive cars does not mean that you can run a 4 litre V8 engine at full power and get 100 miles to the gallon
Sure you can, if you run it in pulse-and-glide mode or use it as an intermittent generator, in a very light / streamlined vehicle. Even if you want to add on a requirement that it has to be run continuously, you could probably pull it off by going to extremes with your streamlining (going for a Cd of 0,1 or less and a cross section of under 0,5m... basically a little teardrop 1-man reclined capsule going at incredible speeds, thus quickly racking up those "miles" to compensate for the fast fuel consumption) and/or using an electrolysis cell to regenerate hydrogen fuel using whatever power your engine has in surplus (wasteful, but better than throwing away the surplus power from your full-throttle requirement for no purpose). Hmm, that's another thing one could do to game your challenge, one could mess with the fuel mix and the fuel-air ratio; some fuels or fuel progenitors are a lot denser than gasoline (more energy per gallon) - for example, using aluminum powder to generate hydrogen for the V8, a gallon of aluminum powder contains 2 1/2 times more energy than a gallon of gasoline, even with the losses in hydrogen generation it'll still leave you way ahead of the game. And there's all sorts of other possible ways one could tweak the engine, too, to reduce both its consumption (and correspondingly, power output) at full power. Including the easiest one, just tweak the throttle control so that full throttle is actually a very low power output. You could also get some small efficiency gains by sabotaging the pollution controls.

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"Close the door! What, were you born in a barn?" -- Police chief, "Jesus Christ Supercop"
Re:This fake too? by retchdog · 2014-06-24 02:44 · Score: 2

He doesn't need your 'physics'. He's a capitalist, you see, and understands that the market makes things work!

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"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Re:This fake too? by naughtynaughty · 2014-06-24 03:02 · Score: 3, Informative

Who said their device is "clearly possible"? Here are some rough numbers to chew on. There are a number of other similar devices already on the market that run off of batteries. The typical battery is a CR2032 which has about 240mAh @ 2V of capacity or about 500mWh. Those devices are reported to last about 2-6 months before the battery dies. There are about 720 hours in a month, 6 months is about 4500 hours Therefore the devices are drawing an average of 500mWh/2500h = .2mW of power or 200 uW Their device is about 4 cm^2 in size, an overly optimistic efficiency of energy harvesting would be 10%. That is an effective area of 0.4 cm^2. To get 200uW of energy would therefore require an energy field of approximately 200uW/0.4cm^2 or 500uW per cm^2 Even their own field measurements directly against the door of an operating microwave oven showed a field 1/5th of that. A 500mW router at a distance of 1 meter has a field strength of 500mW/12566 cm^2 of only 40 uW per cm^2 So even 3' from a 500mW router that is unlikely to really be radiating 500mW of power we are short by a factor of 10. If they are able to overcome that factor of 10 then they should be able to produce a battery powered equivalent that lasts for 5 years on one battery. And even if they are able to overcome that factor of 10 that is only for a tag within 1 meter of a high powered router. Great if you have a habit of losing something within a meter of your router but if the device is 4 meters away (12 feet) then you have a factor of 160 to overcome. So you tell me why battery powered tags aren't made that work for 5 years (or 40 years) if these guys have a design that can live on 200 uW of power.
Re:This fake too? by Alioth · 2014-06-24 03:26 · Score: 2

They plan to power a dogtag sized Bluetooth device by harvesting typical WiFi signal power.
The antenna will be at most about half an inch on each side (0.0125 meters, for a total area of 0.00015625 square meters.
Near a wireless network station used in homes and offices, the field intensity is typically below 0.5 mW per square meter.
Further upthread, someone posted the power required by a modern, low power Bluetooth chip, in its lowest powered sleep mode it requires a current of 900nA and 1mA when idle. Let's say it operates on 1 volt (it's probably 1.2v) so we will actually underestimate its power requirements by saying in its lowest powered sleep mode it requires only 900nW (that's 0.0000009 watts).
At 0.5mW (or 0.005 watts) per sq. m, the maximum energy a dogtag sized device, assuming 100% efficiency (not possible) will be able to harvest is 0.005 * 0.00015625 watts of power. This will work out to about 780nW.
780nW is less than 900nW. QED.
And that's giving them the benefit of the doubt (100% power efficiency, and a lower working voltage for the Bluetooth chip that it probably uses, and only considering the chip being in sleep mode, its lowest possible power mode, and not considering at all any other circuits the device will need - it will need more than just a bluetooth module, it'll need at least a minimal microcontroller of some sort).

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Re:This fake too? by angel'o'sphere · 2014-06-24 07:03 · Score: 2, Informative

3' x 3' is 3 feet squared right? That is nearly a square meter. Under optimal conditions that is roughly 1kW electric power: so yes it basically can power my whole house, as long as not accidentally to many consumers are switched on at the same time.
E.g. the fridge just started up and I activate my hair dryer.
So with some 'juggling' I certainly could power my house over daytime, and no, it is not a low energy house, but I use shades instead of an AC ...
So perhaps you should start to put in real numbers into your claims and start to make some wild guesses about the real numbers of said project?

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Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.

Kickstarter/Amazon still get their cut by EmagGeek · 2014-06-24 00:12 · Score: 5, Interesting

This is why there is zero oversight from Kickstarter/Amazon - they get their 20% cut if the projects gets funded. There's no way Amazon.com is going to walk away from $125,000 in free money when they have absolutely no risk.

(We've heard this song before - from ISPs back in the day who claimed they were "common carriers" and "only providing a network" to avoid being charged as accessories to piracy).

They'll take their 125k, and if questioned, simply state they were providing a platform, and that they are not responsible for what users do with it.

Re:Kickstarter/Amazon still get their cut by Mr+D+from+63 · 2014-06-24 00:58 · Score: 2

I think its more of removing the risk of a scam getting through the initial review, which would provide a liability path.
Re:Kickstarter/Amazon still get their cut by jellomizer · 2014-06-24 01:00 · Score: 2

There's no way Amazon.com is going to walk away from $125,000 in free money when they have absolutely no risk.
No Risks except from legal action, possibly a class action suite. Distrust in the service and decline of its brand name. Lack of repeat customers and new projects being posted as they are afraid they will be considered a scam project as well.

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If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.

Some Public Records ... You Know ... Just in Case by eldavojohn · 2014-06-24 00:13 · Score: 5, Informative

So a whois.net domain name lookup on their site yielded nothing. And there are suspiciously no patents mentioning "wetag" or "ifind" and the names they listed (Dr. Paul McArthur) are in patents but for cold fusion BS in California.

Surely, though, they must have registered the "iFind" trademark? And if you search on TESS we find:

Owner (APPLICANT) WeTag, Inc. CORPORATION TEXAS 3309 San Mateo Drive Plano TEXAS 75023

With an attorney listed as "Richard G. Eldredge" which corresponds to a local attorney. Before you deploy the door kickers to lynch somebody, that address is just somebody's $200,000 house and could possibly be a random address used by a jerk. Remember that it's entirely possible that this is all a front by some other actor and someone was paid western union/bitcoin to register this trademark through this attorney without realizing they were just being used by literally anyone in the world ... of course, kickstarter should have even better transaction details (hopefully).

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My work here is dung.

so how is Kickstarter not liable? by gbjbaanb · 2014-06-24 00:13 · Score: 5, Interesting

If they allow projects to float their rules,and yet still take pledges?

There's a lawsuit waiting to happen here, it could be as lucrative as posting a dodgy kickstarter campaign!

hmm..

1. post obviously crap kickstarter
2. pledge yourself
3. complain vigorously when you "lose" your money
4. start a class-action suit against kickstarter for not checking things out
5. profit!!!

no need for ??? on this one!

Re:so how is Kickstarter not liable? by wbr1 · 2014-06-24 00:36 · Score: 5, Funny

I am just gonna start a kickstarter to pay a lawyer to sue kickstarter.

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Silence is a state of mime.
Re:so how is Kickstarter not liable? by QuasiSteve · 2014-06-24 01:34 · Score: 4, Interesting

The basic defense from them is.. how ARE they liable?
Kickstarter's claim is that they're merely providing a platform, that they conditionally charge for the use of that platform, but that what it's actually used for is not really any of their concern. They also carefully word that backers aren't really investing, that they're basically just throwing money at a person at the hopes of getting something - while at the same time saying that getting that something is required, but that they're no party in it and that backers will just have to fall back to plain ol' contract law with the contract being between the backers and the project creators.
( Also keep in mind that recently they actually dropped a bunch of their rules - though that's more from pressure of other crowdfunding sites and all the bad press Kickstarter has gotten lately for actually policing their rules, than that they wanted to. )
I can think of 3 lawsuits that have happened that involved KickStarter in one way or another:
1. Hanfree - a sort of iPad stand, in which a backer who also happened to be an attorney sued on principle because the project creator burnt through the money (on what? no idea), stopped communicating, and then buggered off. I don't think Kickstarter was named as a defendant. If I recall correctly, that lawsuit also went nowhere fast because the project creator defaulted into bankruptcy.
http://venturebeat.com/2013/01...
2. The WA AG's case (complaint handling) against a project creator. That's ongoing, but as far as I know Kickstarter hasn't been named a defendant there either.
http://www.pcworld.com/article...
3. The 3D Systems case. This was a patent case brought against Formlabs, but initially also named Kickstarter as a defendant because Kickstarter took a 5% cut and promoted the project through their site. Kickstarter was later dropped as a defendant, however.
http://www.insidecounsel.com/2...
So I'm afraid your 5-step program probably isn't going to work on account of Kickstarter absolving themselves from any responsibility, and apparently having the law on their side (until proven otherwise).
On the up side, your 5-step program really only needs to be 3 steps.
1. post not entirely obviously crap Kickstarter but just something that's popular.. like wallets, multitools, iThing covers, 3D printers, custom pens, etc. for which you already know there exists an eager audience.
2. make goal (helps setting it to a realistic level)
3. run off with the money aka profit!!!
Or even two steps, if you don't mind setting up a crowdfunding website and going head-to-head with Kickstarter/indiegogo/rockethub/etc.

I'd rather crowdfund a Star Trek movie. by Z00L00K · 2014-06-24 00:19 · Score: 2

I'd rather crowdfund a Star Trek movie - at least there are some nice ones already made that way.

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If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.

Re:I'd rather crowdfund a Star Trek movie. by Opportunist · 2014-06-24 01:00 · Score: 2

Just don't clean your glasses for a few days and look at the sun and you'll get the same amount of lensflares, why do you need crowdfunding for that?

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We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.

Re:Weren't these guys advertising on slashdot? by Mr+D+from+63 · 2014-06-24 00:27 · Score: 4, Interesting

If you want a chuckle, read the Dr. Paul McArthur "bio" post.

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

Give Kickstarter a break, they're busy by drainbramage · 2014-06-24 00:43 · Score: 2

Give Kickstarter a break, they're very busy protecting us from conservatives.

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No brain, no pain.

False Hope is the Easiest Sell by Andover+Chick · 2014-06-24 00:45 · Score: 4, Insightful

From Snake Oil in the Old West to weight loss scams, baldness fixes, male vitality enhancers, or Breatharians, the easiest thing to sell is false hope since it tricks the buy into thinking about only what they want, not what is actually possible.

Will they get away with this? by GameboyRMH · 2014-06-24 00:50 · Score: 2

If (when) they just take the money and run, are they legally in the clear? If so, I think I'm about to switch careers...

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"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel

Re:Solar roadway? by GameboyRMH · 2014-06-24 00:51 · Score: 2

The technology for the solar roadways is completely legit, it's the business case for it that's total BS.

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"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel

Re:Some Public Records ... You Know ... Just in Ca by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-24 00:52 · Score: 2, Informative

Actually, according to Zillow, the house was rented for $1,250 in May 2013. It isn't even an owner-occupied house.

Re:Big deal by queazocotal · 2014-06-24 00:54 · Score: 4, Insightful

Cars exist, right? Foldable bikes exist, and there are quite a number of them out there.
Buy my foldable 400MPH 400 miles to the gallon car which folds up into a suitcase, only $1K.

$500K is not enough to develop custom silicon for the task. They're using someone elses chip.
The format can't capture enough power, due to unfortunate laws of physics to do bluetooth pairing.
Batteryless NFC RFID tags work with a comparatively huge field to power them. (millions of times as
strong as a nearby wifi router)

Re:Simple, by ArcadeMan · 2014-06-24 00:58 · Score: 4, Funny

Not to mention that if they store the energy in a bank, they're going to lose most of it to transaction fees.

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Nice, 1/2 mill for a few pieces of plastic by gweihir · 2014-06-24 01:01 · Score: 2

And no, they cannot do what they claim. It is possible to build locators like they describe, but they would need to be passive. There is just no way to harvest and store enough in something this small. RFID tags derive all their energy from the sender that queries them, and with good antennas you can go up to, say 30m with them. But that is the limit these days and it is for a passive device that has its energy specifically and targeted beamed to it by the sender. For a harvesting device, you get very low power radio, almost no computing power and a few meters in reach and that is with a specialized receiver, not a general-purpose cell-phone.

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Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.

Re:Weren't these guys advertising on slashdot? by NotDrWho · 2014-06-24 01:01 · Score: 3, Interesting

The best part is

Some people have wondered why I do not have a robust presence online. Well, unfortunately, my identity was once stolen. And when that happens, you think twice about posting anything online. I have not even created a LinkedIn profile.

I think I had a Nigerian prince write me last week with the same story.

--
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.

Not half as bad as videogame kickstarters by timrod · 2014-06-24 01:09 · Score: 4, Interesting

Videogame kickstarters have (from experience) more false claims than any other Kickstarter type I've ever seen. For instance, there was one that Retsupurae covered on Youtube yesterday, where a person claiming to be a "former Square-Enix employee" was trying to get people to crowdfund a remake of Chrono Trigger... made entirely in RPG Maker. Apart from the fact that said "former employee" didn't have the rights to Chrono Trigger, it was pretty clear that he had never actually coded anything before. In comparison, there have been several groups attempting to remake the game, all of whom were doing it for free. They were all sent C&D letters and stopped - but this guy didn't have to because his Kickstarter came nowhere close to getting funded.

There was also the guy who tried to make a 3D version of Monster Girl Quest. Compared to the Chrono Trigger guy he was a little better off rights-wise: he didn't own the rights to the real Monster Girl Quest, which hadn't even released its third and final installment when the Kickstarter went up, but MGQ wasn't registered in the United States yet and was only purchaseable through Japanese websites. The developer of MGQ is small enough that I don't think they would have the resources to sue, but they didn't have to - the guy didn't make funding, which was probably for the best, seeing as he featured his family (including his son, who was like five years old when he made the Kickstarter) in a pitch video for a "clean" version of an h-game.

If Kickstarter can't catch basic things like these, where they're clearly an infringement of copyright that could be discovered in a matter of seconds (both of the Kickstarters I mentioned had the names of the games they were stealing from clearly listed in their summaries) there's no way they're going to catch bad science.

Re:Lets list other free energy communication scams by gweihir · 2014-06-24 01:11 · Score: 3, Insightful

They do not have the antenna and storage for what they claim they can do. There are limits what you can capture in something this small and they are rather low. and way below what Bluetooth needs.

--
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.

Actual PhD students getting slandered? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-24 01:20 · Score: 4, Interesting

Before the witch hunt begins, someone should kindly ask this guy, one of the listed affiliates:
http://www.ifp.illinois.edu/~zwang119/
whether he knowingly has his name on this project. From the looks of his research, he does nothing with hardware. And so someone may have just listed him.

If it actually is him, this can be roped in really fast by either contacting his academic advisor and if necessary, the chair of the department or a Dean. This would create such horrible publicity for U. Illinois that action should be swift and decisive.

Look, if people really doubt the science (and I do: wireless electromagnetic power transission is really only a near field phenomena because those contributions to the E and B fields that can drive currents usefully drop much harder than 1/r).

Now go and be nice, he's probably a victim too.

Re:Actual PhD students getting slandered? by ldbapp · 2014-06-24 01:29 · Score: 2

Similarly: Wotao Yin, according to google, is a mathematician working on the mathematics of optimization. Yet, he is listed as a biz.dev. guy who, "leads the business and marketing strategy development". That's a leap right there. I'd guess his name has also been used without his knowledge.
Re:Actual PhD students getting slandered? by FryingLizard · 2014-06-25 03:55 · Score: 2

Did he say if he'd seen a working device, or confirm anything other than that it was him that appears on the KS page? Verifiable details from the creators are exceedingly thin on the ground. If you'd like to screencap your email and post a link to the image, that would be great. Thanks.

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[FrLz]

Re:If they walk away with this money... by Rei · 2014-06-24 01:20 · Score: 2

Hey, at least they're technologically feasible. Anti-slip glass exists, LEDs exists, resistive heaters exist, solar cells exist, etc. The complaints with that one were always over the economics, in particular, their ridiculous snow-melting idea, which would take about a dollar at average US prices per square foot if you assume 100% efficiency to melt just a couple inches of snow (the crazy thing is, there are better snow-prevention/removal solutions that don't waste that much energy... but the people running the program didn't even take the time to do the simple energy requirements calculation for melting to realize that their particular solution is a non-starter)

This case is even more ridiculous because what they're claiming here isn't even technologically possible.

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"Close the door! What, were you born in a barn?" -- Police chief, "Jesus Christ Supercop"

Re:Weren't these guys advertising on slashdot? by Jason+Levine · 2014-06-24 01:25 · Score: 3, Informative

I had my identity stolen once. (Name, address, SSN and DOB were used to open a credit card in my name. Thanks a lot, Capital One, for not validating Mother's Maiden Name!) I still post online, though. Why? Because the things I post online won't result in my identity being stolen again. I'm more at risk of my doctor's office's computers being hacked into causing my personal information to leak out than I am at risk of all of my online posts combined causing my identity to be stolen.

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My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.

Great Product! by robstout · 2014-06-24 01:28 · Score: 3, Funny

I'll use it in my car, which gets 100 MPG due to the fuel line magnets. Too bad I can't afford the conversion kit so it can run on water :)

Why is that not good enough? by sirwired · 2014-06-24 01:28 · Score: 2

Why is "Well, it wouldn't get enough power from the air" not good enough? This is basic physics here... broadcast RF has a certain total power level over any given antenna area based on the power of the transmitter(s) and the distance from the broadcast RF source(s); this device, in order to meet Bluetooth tx power requirements for their required transmit interval, along with the power for the chips, etc., requires more than that. Done.

The math and physics required here are not complicated nor do they take much space to explain. What exactly are you looking for?

Freedom! Speech wants to be free! by DutchUncle · 2014-06-24 01:36 · Score: 4, Insightful

And I say, with my freedom of speech, "Caveat Emptor" - let the buyer beware. Is this any worse than the dot-com bubble? I am surprised to see so much call for regulation and oversight here on /. where I would have expected to see more focus on the decentralized crowd-based DEBUNKING that this article itself represents. Many technological items were impossible, then impractical, then suddenly commonplace, so distinguishing between "bad science" and "immature technology" is harder than it used to be. Add a generation of insistence that "everyone's opinion has validity" and it's no wonder that science is having such a hard time.

you know who protected his purity of essence? by Thud457 · 2014-06-24 01:39 · Score: 4, Funny

But... but... TESLA!

deathray...

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the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Re:Keep an open mind by Rhywden · 2014-06-24 01:42 · Score: 3, Insightful

"But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."

- Carl Sagan

I'm sold! by Overzeetop · 2014-06-24 01:46 · Score: 2

Wow, only $1000? That's AWESOME! For a foldable car I'd be willing to pay, like $10,000, but if you're going to do a kickstarter and I can get in at the $1000 level, I'm TOTALLY in!!

And that's probably exactly how these charlatans have managed to get that many supporters.

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Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?

P. T. Barnam is reported to have said: by bobbied · 2014-06-24 02:08 · Score: 2

"There is a sucker born every minute!"

Things like this prove him right. "A fool and his money are soon parted...."

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"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101

There's also the price... by denzacar · 2014-06-24 02:11 · Score: 2

At $14-16 it's not too expensive.

Which is where argument to moderation fallacy kicks in. Followed by a dose of loss aversion.
"Sure, it may not work as advertised, but it may still work. And at this price, it's a bargain."

Seriously, I'm reading the description and I find myself thinking "Maybe they'll just slap a battery in it and it will work for a couple of months... I could live with that..."
And I KNOW that it's a scam.

And I am clearly not alone in this way of thinking. From the google doc list of reasons why it is fake:

5) At the very, very least the iFind will have to be "recharged" by placing it next to a strong wifi signal once a week or month. In retrospect, this would be fine. Yet WeTag has not brought this up when asked.

Sure, it's fake. But dammit wouldn't it be nice if it wasn't?

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Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens

Re:Simple, by CaptainLard · 2014-06-24 02:18 · Score: 3, Interesting

Its your lucky day because I feel like showing everyone I know how RFID works.

RFID tags consists of an antenna, diode, charge pump and controller. A comparatively HUGE external source lights up the tag with radio waves. The tag's antenna collects power for the charge pump to boost it up to a useable voltage for the controller. This type of "power bank" was developed not long after capacitors, diodes, and switches were simultaneously available. Then of course the controller broadcasts its data right? Well sorta. Since there is not nearly enough power to transmit in the traditional sense, all it does is toggle a PIN diode, shorting the antenna to ground.

What the hell good does that do for the external transmitter? Well, when the antenna is active, a tiny bit of power is absorbed and when it's shorted out that tiny power is reflected back. The external transmitter is sensitive enough to tell the difference allowing a super low bandwidth ID code to get through. Kinda like you shining a flashlight on your computer screen and a single pixel blinking back a message. Wild eh?

This would never work for modern bluetooth. The baud rates and overhead involved currently require powered transceivers on both ends. This kickstart isn't RFID, its a fake.

What Bankruptcy Means by sjbe · 2014-06-24 02:24 · Score: 2

Umm.. hate to break it to you, but the U.S. government *IS* bankrupt.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. [/InigoMontoya] Our debt to GDP ratio isn't even the highest it ever has been. Back in the 1945s we had a debt to GDP ratio of around 113%. Right now our debt to GDP ratio is about 101%. Not good but we've literally seen worse. That number could easily be drawn down if we had some leaders who were interested in actually leading.

Furthermore ALL of the debt the US has is denominated in US dollars. Though it would be a terrible idea, the US can essentially print the money if they wanted to. People make a big deal about the fact that the US owes China (and Japan too) a trillion dollars. However think about that. China can't dump the debt, they can't demand repayment or foreclose on anything, and there isn't even anyone who is willing or able to buy that much debt. They are stuck with it at least for quite a few years. They've bought it to protect their currency and to maintain their low exchange rate to support their export economy. China can't really do much about the debt without screwing themselves in the process.

If you don't call 17+ TRILLION DOLLARS in the hole, and not to mention an uncountable number of trillions in unfunded "entitlements" bankrupt, I don't know what to tell you...

I call it irresponsible. I don't call it bankrupt because it isn't. Bankrupt means you are UNABLE to pay your debts. The US government is perfectly able, it is just unwilling. We have a bunch of irresponsible leaders (on both sides) who put ideology and power above all else and we keep electing them for some reason. The problem could be solved by some combination of reducing spending and raising taxes. Pick the combination that makes you happiest, but the only items that truly matter are the military, medicare/medicaid and social security since together they account for around 3/4 of the budget. I'd start with the military since we spend WAY too much on "defense" for no sane reason and it accounts for close to a quarter of government spending. Any budget that doesn't address military and medicare spending/revenue is nothing more than political propaganda.

Re:What Bankruptcy Means by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-24 02:56 · Score: 3, Informative

It is irresponsible. However "bankrupt" also applies because one of the definition of "bankrupt" is "overleveraged". The definition of GDP is "the market value of all officially recognized goods and services produced within a country." The problem here being that the amount of money the government spends and the GDP are not coupled. The GDP does not describe the amount of money or goods owned by the government. They have no claim on GDP, which is owned by the citizens of the United States. The only legitimate measure of the government's ability to spend money should be revenues.
The problem will never by solved by any plan which requires increased taxes because the federal government has never shown any inclination to apply revenue generated by increase taxes to debt reduction. New taxes always go to new spending.
Defense spending is less than 18%, hardly a quarter of government spending, and it is already going down. Is it too much? Probably. However since along with establishing a currency, running the post office and regulating interstate commerce national defense is one of the few things the federal government is suppose to be doing 18% of a reasonable budget is probably not out of line. Especially when considering that Non-defense discretionary spending is 17%. Since none of the Non-discretionary spending is in conformance to what the Constitution says the Federal Government should be doing I'd say lets address that first. When its down to zero we can see about reducing defense.
Re:What Bankruptcy Means by HornWumpus · 2014-06-24 08:07 · Score: 2

We never were in the black; not for a second. They had a single projected surplus, (but only if you ignored the SS trust fund scam) but that went away when .com popped.
Of course none of the increased spending (budgeted against the surplus the never happened) got rolled back. That would be fascist.

--
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Re:What Bankruptcy Means by HornWumpus · 2014-06-24 08:20 · Score: 2

1. WTF part of international law? Be specific, they bought non-callable bonds. The only thing they can do with them is sell them on the secondary market. Which would hurt them more then us. They still end up with dollars in their hands. Where are they going to put the money, the euro? They will put the money into American land, same as they have been for 5 years now that they aren't buying American bonds anymore.
2. They can embargo their biggest market and the worlds biggest manufacturer, good luck to them. We get more stuff (in dollar terms) from Mexico then China.
3. Nobody goes to war with a trading partner. That's what got them the deal in the first place. Duh.
The good parts of China's banking reserves are US debt. The rest is more or less non-performing. China has busted it's ass for decades for average 1% profits, then put a good chunk of that into US debt. Chumps.
The fact is everything wrong with the US dollar is even more wrong with the English Pound. It is the canary in the coal mine. Most leveraged, most unbalanced tax structure, worst national growth, most broken society, most wankers, most upper class twits. When the Pound goes pop, then the euro and dollar need to wake-up.

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John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'

Re:Keep an open mind by Mr+D+from+63 · 2014-06-24 02:46 · Score: 3, Funny

Bozo was a genius, in his own way.

Its Only Sudden if You Never Knew About It. by Lienlaw · 2014-06-24 02:59 · Score: 2

Your argument - Many technological items were impossible, then impractical, then suddenly commonplace - tends to resonate with some people. Who is to say that will not happen again? But in using this argument we avoid an unpleasant historical truth; the scientists of that field, the technologist of that field, the experts in that field, were by and large not surprised by the breakthrough and impossible was never part of the equation. Once electricity was understood the light bulb was never seen as Ãoealmost impossibleÃ by the experts in the field. It was not a ÃoemiracleÃ at all, rather the logical outgrowth of a systematic and scientific search. There was nothing "sudden" about it. EdisonÃ(TM)s patents and breakthroughs amazed the common person and headline writers because of the implications on society, not the technology itself. Nobody in the business saw it as a sudden event. The technology was the outgrowth of prior systematic research and studies. It was the average commentator, uninformed investor and Ãoeman-on-the-streetÃ who were shocked and then delighted. Look at quantum computing today. Researchers, physicists and mathematicians in that field have been hard at work since Feynman proposed it in 1982. When it is enabled those in the field will not be amazed and commonplace use by these people will have been assumed long before we see it.

Re:If they walk away with this money... by Rei · 2014-06-24 03:50 · Score: 2

Oh, god, Thunderf00t, thats who your videos are from? Yeah, I've ran into that guy before, he's a moron.

Once the glass breaks, it's stays broken.

Which can be said about any road surface. What point are you trying to make? Are you trying to claim that glass will break easy under pressure? News flash, the glass glazing on some skyscrapers actually holds up their own collective weight. Glass has superb compressive strength. It's very poor in dealing with flexural loads, which is why you have to have panels that can flex between individual panes. And gee, remind me again, what's the proposal here for the road? Oh, yeah - panels.

Debris will scratch the glass making it more translucent rather than transparent reducing its effectiveness.

Which is why you use a scratch-resistant coating like is used on countertops, bar code readers, and thousands of other glass products; they're not even that expensive, for a basic level of protection (if you want to get all the way to something like gorilla glass, that's rather pricey, but also totally unnecessary). Why did you not even consider anti-scratch coatings? And FYI, just like greenhouses continue to work when scratched, so do scratched solar panels. It's not the end of the world.

To prevent scratching, your surface simply has to be harder than what's rubbing against it. Few materials in the natural world are harder than quartz (Mohs hardness 7), so a Mohs hardness 7.5 coating is sufficient. It's not like people are going to be scratching rubies against the road.

And lastly, just like it's far easier to mount panels on a flat surface on the ground than some pre-existing home where you have to worry about structural integrity, leaks, etc, it's also far easier to maintain them on the ground.

Roadways don't track the sun

Neither do rooftops. Only a small fraction of PV installations are on heliostats, they're mainly used for solar thermal. The cheaper PV gets, the less sense heliostats make (the cost of the actual solar cell material itself is on the road to irrelevance, more and more it comes down to installation costs).

As he rightly points out, putting the solar cells NEXT TO the road works much better.

If you're talking about the shoulder, I'd call that "part of the road". If you're talking about building a whole new structure, no, that's idiocy. The point of this is to minimize land use and to eliminate the need to build two separate structures (a road and a solar panel farm). Labor costs dominate both of these, so eliminating half your labor is A Big Deal(TM).

Not that I think this team has approached things in the right order. "Solar freaking walkways" are much lower hanging fruit. And their focus on winter climes is a stupid way to start as well. But yours (and Thunderf00t)'s arguments are just stupid.

And the idea of putting it in parking lots is even dumber. Yeah, parking lots where cars are parked on it during the day (this blocking the sun) and empty at night (where there's no sun).

Except that even the idiot team that ran the kickstarter wasn't focusing on the parking spaces themselves. Seriously, stop what you're doing, right now, and go to Google Maps, pick a random spot in the country (don't bias it), zoom in, find the nearest road, and look at it. Observe how little of the road is shaded by cars. The answer will be, "virtually none".

Okay, let's try to bias it. Pick a city of your choice. Now pick a random spot in it and zoom in, not biasing your zoom in more than that. Look at the nearest road and observe how little is shaded. Again, "very, very little"

Okay, bias to your heart's content. Pick out the

--
"Close the door! What, were you born in a barn?" -- Police chief, "Jesus Christ Supercop"

Fuck that, check this out by nitehawk214 · 2014-06-24 04:30 · Score: 3, Interesting

Quantum Energy Generator. Now that's the stuff.

I skipped around the video and the best part is at 9:20:
"When I stand in that lab, I can feel the magical presence of the QEG."

I hope that they are using the money to go beat everyone who donates to it with a stick.

--
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust

Re:If you're an adult and you haven't figured out by mark_reh · 2014-06-24 10:13 · Score: 2

When I am home my keys are in a box next to the door where I put them each time I come in the door. When I am away from home my keys are in my pocket or in my desk. It is NOT difficult to keep track of important things. It merely takes developing good habits. Good habits includes putting things away in places that make sense. I'm going to need my keys when I leave the house and get into my car, so the keys are kept at the garage door. It would be silly to keep my keys in a cabinet in the kitchen, for example, unless I entered and exited the house through the kitchen.

Obviously you can't keep keys in a single place at ALL times. Your airport security line is a good example. But how am I going to lose my keys in an airport security line? I put them through the machine and I pick them up on the other side and put them back into my pocket. Here's a simple tip that will save you a lot of panic at airport security lines: after you pick up your stuff, run through a simple mental checklist- keys, wallet, passport, tickets, boarding passes and then anything else you had to let go of for the security check, such as a laptop, phone, etc. To help remember, think about what you need for your trip- passport, ticket, boarding pass, wallet, and what you need if you don't go- wallet and keys. There, that wasn't so hard, was it?

I admit that I didn't always have such good habits,. When I was much younger I spent a fair amount of time searching for things that I should have known the locations of at all times. I learned from the time I wasted how not to be such a dope. I know of other people who seem to be incapable of learning such lessons. For them the device described might be good, if it works.

Uh-oh! by SpammersAreScum · 2014-06-24 13:11 · Score: 3, Funny

I'm confused. I have one of your early prototypes, and when I aim it at your post it blinks like crazy!

That means your post is a scam. But if your post is a scam, my device shouldn't be blinking. But my device is blinking...so your post must be a scam.....but...

... backing slowly away from the imminent head explosion as the logic circuits overload ...

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$500k "Energy-Harvesting" Kickstarter Scam Unfolding Right Now

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