Hasta La Gadget!

Now here is an example of a successful Kickstarter project – we brought you word of Mighty No. 9 yesterday, a new and upcoming game from Keiji Inafune, where many have called Mighty No. 9 as the ‘spiritual successor’ to Mega Man. In fact, the Kickstarter goal for Mighty No. 9 looked to be a rather challenging prospect to the tune of $900,000, but fret not as the power of fanboys have come to the fore and saved the day yet again, as the Mighty No. 9 Kickstarter project has already surpassed the initial $900,000 funding goal with another 29 more days to spare.

Hopefully, there will be other stretch goals to meet down the road that will see Mighty No. 9 evolve into an even more in-depth gaming title. We cannot wait to see how Mighty No. 9 will play out eventually, can you? In the mean time, you can always go through your back catalogue of Mega Man games on an emulator or one of those classic game compilations. Do you think that it is good to revisit the scene of your previous success, or should one always strive for something that is totally new? I guess there is always a time and a place for either, and Mighty No. 9, it might be a nice walk down memory lane in a more modern setting.

Mighty No. 9 Achieves 900k Funding Goal original content from Ubergizmo.

When a Kickstarter project goes well enough to inspire a sequel a few years down the road, it’s generally a positive sign. In the case of Juicies, a startup that originally built itself up on the back of a successful campaign to build 30-pin dock connector cables in a range of colours, the return to the crowdfunding site is about building cables for Apple’s new Lightning standard, as well as micro USB models that differentiate themselves in terms of design and materials.

The Juicies+ cable will juice up your devices using a combination of anodized aluminum to shield the circuitry of the connectors at each end, along with a woven cord of the variety that’s designed to prevent tangles and knots. The stated goal of this new design, according to Juicies founders Laurens Laudowicz and Hannes Reichelt, is to bring the cables we use to charge our devices every day up to snuff with the devices themselves in terms of design and craftsmanship.

Laudowicz and Reichelt are a split team working from Honolulu and Bremen, Germany. Laurens began the first Juicies project on his own with the original Kickstarter, but the two paired up quickly after and Hannes has been helming European sales and distribution of the product ever since. Reichelt is an Economics grad with experience working for Siemens doing marketing and market research in the Middle East, while Laudowicz is an entrepreneur with work experience as an antiques buyer and marketer. Despite sharing relatively little product development experience between them, the pair successfully built the original Juicies online business and now sells 30-pin cables, micro USB and USB extensions in a rainbow of colours.

Juicies+ is a sort of premium twist on the work they have already been doing, borrowing a page from makers of premium headphones, which often feature woven cable casing designs. Aside from offering a premium feel, woven cables are far less likely to knot or tangle with themselves or with one another, making them easier to stow hastily in a bag and then later recover.

The startup also needs to update its product for Apple’s current generation of mobile devices; Lightning is the prevailing standard on Apple iOS hardware now, and its use will likely occlude that of 30-pin entirely come September when Apple introduces new iPhone hardware. Accordingly, the Juicies+ team is going to be using Lightning connectors sourced from Apple via its MFI program to create its cables, which is the only way to guarantee compatibility with Apple devices. This could present one of the biggest potential risks for the project; Apple has been slower to provide MFI-certified parts to accessory-making partners, so there may be a bottleneck in terms of supply. It’s also the only authorized supplier of the Lightning connector acceptable for the MFI program.

The anticipated ship date for the Juicies+ cables is January 2014, but a big part of the production process lies outside of the project founders’ hands because of the required MFI certification, so that date could well slip, especially if there’s renewed interest in Lightning components from accessory makers in the wake of Apple’s anticipated September iPhone announcement. Still, the team has shown it can work with Apple’s MFI program and ship product at scale, so chances are backers will eventually get their money’s worth in this instance, even if it does take a bit longer than anticipated.

Getting Arduino-powered devices to talk to each other over long distances is going to get cheaper and easier if this Kickstarter project flies. Flutter is a wireless development platform for Arduino with over half a mile of usage range — making it suitable for outdoor projects covering greater distances than Wi-Fi can comfortably manage.

Possible use-cases could include home automation systems, flying bots like quadcopters, environmental monitoring systems and radio-controlled cars. In short any Arduino-powered project that needs to ferry data from one relatively distant point to another. Flutter’s range will be 1,000m+ (3,200ft) but its creators also intend to include a mesh networking component, so multiple devices can be positioned to cover even greater distances than the standard half mile+ range.

The plan — assuming Flutter hits its crowdfunding target of $80,000 to turn its current Kickstarter prototypes into shipping product — is to offer two main Flutter board options to network up your devices: a basic board costing $20 and a pro board with a built in antenna for $30. The boards will be powered by an Atmel SAM3s ARM CPU.

The Flutter Basic board will have an integrated (rather than external) antenna and is smaller in size thanks to having components on both sides. It also has a micro USB for power and programming, an LED, and a button, plus digital and analog I/O. The Pro board will include battery charging, a professional screw mount antenna, an additional button, and more memory for more code.

Flutter’s makers also plan to offer a few other bits of kit to flesh out their wireless system, including a variety of shields for easier plug and play (and minimal soldering); a home base station which can connect to a router via Ethernet or Wi-Fi; and a Bluetooth shield for talking to a smartphone and interfacing with a planned Flutter mobile app.

The more devices you want to talk to each other, the more boards/bits of kit you’ll obviously need but at $20/$30 a pop for the main boards the cost should scale to support sizeable projects without breaking the bank.

Kickstarter backers are being offered a veritable pick ‘n’ mix of options, starting at $25 for one basic board — rising to $475 for this “autonomous swarm” supporting haul:  5x Flutter Basic, 5x Flutter Pro, 4x RC Shield, 2x Shield shield, 1x Flutter Network Shield, 1x Bluetooth Shield, 1x Starter Kit, 10x USB and 12x (two extra) Breakouts.

Security is an obvious focus for Flutter’s creators — being as you’re transmitting potentially sensitive data over relatively large distances where it could be intercepted. Data transfers will be encrypted and the Flutter devices themselves will include a cryptographic chip to store and protect encryption keys.

The project is also open source. “Every aspect of our system will be made available, from schematics, board designs, the bill of materials, right down to the firmware and mobile app. We want to make it as easy as possible for you to build or improve upon our foundation,” they note. Plus they intend to offer a set of tutorials to open up wireless development to a broader base of makers.

It’s an ambitious project for sure, and still has a fair bit of work to do — including redesigning the prototype, gaining FCC certification for the wireless hardware, developing their supporting software and mobile apps (iOS and Android are planned) — but they are already approaching the half-way mark of their funding target with 27 days left to run on their campaign so have clearly struck a chord with the maker community.  With that kind of support this is one Kickstarter project that looks all but certain to take off.

If you’re not the sort of person who enjoys putting things in their ear for fear of damaging your hearing, such as earphones, the Sound Band could be the answer to your problems. The idea of the Sound Band is to eliminate the need for earphones, but at the same time allow you to enjoy your music at the same time. For safety reasons it also lets you be aware of your surroundings, such as the noise from cars or people, which might sometimes be deafened through your earphones, especially if you play your music really loud. (more…)

The Sound Bar Are A Pair Of Earphones Minus The Speakers original content from Ubergizmo.

Gone are the days when cell phones used to be cluttered with buttons. Now, smartphones only have buttons that are absolutely necessary, such as the power, volume and home button. Most Android devices don’t even have a home button anymore. What if you want to have a hardware button to bring a little simplicity back to your phone, a button that allows you to perform your favorite and most common actions by just pressing a button? Pressy brings one hardware button to any Android device, it can be configured to do just about anything at the cost of sacrificing the headphone jack.

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Pressy Adds A Hardware Button To Any Android Device original content from Ubergizmo.