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The Mind-Reading Gadget For Dogs That Got Funded, But Didn't Get Built (ieee.org)
the_newsbeagle writes: Crowdfunding campaigns that fail to deliver may be all too common, but some flameouts merit examination. Like this brain-scanning gadget for dogs, which promised to translate their barks into human language. It's not quite as goofy as it sounds: The campaigners planned to use standard EEG tech to record the dogs' brainwaves, and said they could correlate those electrical patterns with general states of mind like excitement, hunger, and curiosity. The campaign got a ton of attention in the press and raised twice the money it aimed for. But then the No More Woof team seemed to vanish, leaving backers furious. This article explains what went wrong with the campaign, and what it says about the state of neurotech gadgets for consumers.
The more damning part is that they claim to have spent more than they received on the project, before simply forgetting about it. How do you go into the red and be so far into the red that you can't make a profit on the product, and then also forget about it? It seems unlikely compared to simply having chosen to drop the project and not having told anybody.
I mean, you're spending money working on it, you have some part of your R&D area set up with whatever you're spending that money on, at some point you have to have decided to shelve the project and put the stuff away. That isn't an accident or an oversight at the time it is happening. If they forgot they did it, that would have been weeks or months after they decided not to deliver, and decided not to communicate that.
I did an indiegogo in 2014, hit around 300%, bought a lathe and a drill press and a 3d printer, and delivered all the units within 90 days.
After that I decided to start selling my invention through regular channels... and discovered that crowdfunding is radioactive to investors unless you hit more than 1000%. Most people told me that what I had already invented, built, and sold was unfeasible.
One person even told me that it was unfeasible AFTER it had made a hole in his desk.
Why do grifters ruin it for the rest of us?
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.