Hasta La Gadget!

Just because a smartphone can flex, doesn’t mean it will on a regular basis. The LG G Flex does have the term in its title, but – rather similar to … Continue reading

Makers looking to squeeze a little cash from the crowd to get a project off the ground have more choice than ever before about which crowdfunding platform to position their project on. From big names like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, to a the go-it-alone route (Selfstarter) or a raft of smaller platforms with various targeted/niche approaches.

And with crowdfunding becoming increasingly, well, crowded, these platforms are having to work harder to poach promising projects off each other.

Case in point: relative newcomer to the crowdfunding platform space, Dragon Innovation, which is focused on hardware and has put in years as a manufacturing consultancy but only months as a crowdfunder platform, nabbed Internet of Things hardware catalyst project, the Wunderbar, out of the clutches of Kickstarter earlier this month.

“After first being accepted to launch on Kickstarter and planning it, we were approached by the expert team at Dragon Innovations in Boston… to launch on their crowdfunding platform,” said Wunderbar’s Jackson Bond, explaining why the switcheroo.

“They conducted a due diligence on the product and really wanted to help us launch it, with PR, marketing, and manufacturing expertise, also because their audience is Internet of Things ready.”

Dragon Innovation isn’t only doing business development via last minute pitches to promising makers. Today it’s stepped up its wooing efforts with an offer of $100,000 in seed funding to all projects that launch on its platform starting from this month and go on to pass $1 million in crowdfunding raised.

So that’s a guarantee of a little follow-on funding if your project can nab a decent chunk of crowdbacking on Dragon’s platform via this January ongoing offer.

It’s worth noting that, to-date, no projects on Dragon Innovation’s platform have passed the one million dollar mark — so clearly it’s hoping to raise its own profile by bagging some higher calibre projects here. Dragon only launched its crowdfunding platform last October, although it’s been offering various services to makers since 2009 (and name-checks MakerBot, LIFX, PerkinElmer, Scout, Romotive, Sifteo and Orbotix as being among its customers).

The most a project using Dragon Innovation’s platform has raised to-date is the $196,682 raised by Tessel: an Internet-controlled microcontroller programmable in JavaScript.

In addition to $100,000 in seed funding — which will come in the form of a convertible note (converting into equity upon predetermined thresholds) — the entrepreneurs behind qualifying projects will be offered anything from Dragon’s suite of services that might help them develop their business further, such as connections to manufacturers and to other potential investors, and consulting about scaling their operations, it said. 

“The primary motivation of this program is to help companies grow and thrive,” Dragon Innovation added — albeit, the business of developing its own crowdfunding platform, and using that platform as an on-ramp to its additive hardware consulting services, is clearly also part of that growth target here. 

“We envision Dragon Innovation as the official home for hardware, providing entrepreneurs everything they need to launch products and scale their companies,” said Scott N. Miller, CEO and co-founder, in a statement.

“By working closely with great entrepreneurs from the very beginning, Dragon can provide a full spectrum of resources and experience to help companies succeed. It makes natural sense for us to extend this commitment in the form of funding to help hardware entrepreneurs achieve success.”

This article was written on May 27, 2008 by CyberNet.

It’s always interesting to see the patents that different technology companies file because sometimes (not always), it gives us an idea of what’s to come. The latest patent filed by Apple is for “solar cells on portable devices” which gives us an idea that they just might be solar cells to the iPhone and/or iPods. The image below shows that there would be a layer of glass, an LCD layer, and then a “solar cells” layer. Doing it this way gives them plenty of room to “harness” the sun.

Using a combination of battery power and solar power would be an interesting way to provide the longest possible battery life for devices. While this is by no means new, it could be an opportunity for Apple to introduce it on “popular” devices and for other companies to take notice and try to implement something similar. Engadget points out how Motorola has already patented the approach of covering an entire device with a layer of solar cells, which they say is what Apple intends to do, except Apple intends to conceal those solar panels so that there’s no problems with the aesthetics of the device.

Now we have to keep in mind that companies can file patent upon patent, but that doesn’t mean that they’ll actually do anything with it. I have to admit that having a device like an iPod or iPhone that could partially run on solar power would be pretty darn cool, but who knows if anything will actually come of it. The other problem if they do implement such technology would be, do people really spend that much time out in the sun or light where their devices would have the opportunity to harness the sun?

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This week HP released details on how they’d continue to release devices with the Windows 7 operating system onboard. This is far from unheard of in the PC universe, with … Continue reading

This article was written on August 01, 2006 by CyberNet.

If you’re looking for a way to remove the ‘shine’ from the back of your iPod, here’s a solution for you. I came across a website in which someone brushed the back of the iPod to give it a different look and take away the shine (and the fingerprints). They say it takes about an hour and some patience to get the job done, but it’s doable. All you have to do is set your ipod face down on a gripped surface (one idea was to flip a mouse pad over) to keep it from moving. Next, take a sponge with the rough side facing down and stroke the back of the iPod in a vertical direction. Obviously, you’ll want to keep stroking in the same direction. When you’re working on the sides and the top and bottom, use a piece of electrical tape to run around the edges on the front to keep it protected. Just keep working it with the sponge until it looks the way you like it. This sounds like a simple way to get rid of the annoying finger prints. It seems no matter what I do to keep my iPod clean (and unscratched for that matter), somehow it never works. I have yet to try this solution out for myself, but I’m considering it!

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com