If you’ve ever ridden a Citibike (or any similar bike-share bicycle) you know: those suckers are heavy. And, if you’ve ever ridden up anything near an incline, you know that heavy bikes absolutely suck on hills. Wouldn’t it be great to just push a button instead?
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How do you listen to your music? Headphones you say? Sometimes on an Airplay or Bluetooth speaker? Oh. That’s pretty cool. I just listen to mine on plasma. Dancing electrical sparks that leap between two electrodes and produce a small amount of ozone. No big deal. Just, you know, how cool people do. Actually that’s not how I listen to music, but it could be if I back the ARC Plasma… Read More
Japanese RPGs are immensely fun and if you’ve played any of the Final Fantasy series, Xenoblade Chronicles, Chrono Trigger, and the likes, you know what we’re talking about. Unfortunately for the most part, these titles are typically released in Japan first and while it is possible to get them imported, chances are you will be left confused as the entire game is in Japanese.
So wouldn’t it be awesome if you could read and understand the language so you wouldn’t have to wait months, or maybe years until a localized version is released? Well that’s what a Kickstarter game by the name of Koe is hoping to do, which is to teach you the Japanese language in a game form which at the same time resembles JRPGs. (more…)
Kickstarter Game Will Teach You Japanese As You Play original content from Ubergizmo. 
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I am quite sure that every single house needs a handyman around, even better when that person happens to live under the same roof as you. After all, calling a plumber to fix a leak could prove expensive in the long run, so why not ensure that someone living in the same house as you has the necessary DIY skills to perform all the little touch ups? Well, here is a Kickstarter project that might pique your interest – never mind the lack of skill, having the right tools are also essential in getting the task done in the first place. The Screw Grabber is a solution to the non-magnetic screw problem, where you need not worry about a dropped screw – ever again.
The Screw Grabber will arrive with a transparent rubber sleeve which will slide onto screwdrivers so that it can hold a range of screw sizes to the end of a screwdriver. The ribbed head interior ensures that screws remain nice and straight, while the interior taper would adjust itself for a wide range of screw head sizes. Since the ribbed shaft interior was specially designed to come into constant contact with the drivers shank, there are 4 points of contact which enable for a wider range of shank diameters, all the while reducing friction whenever one slides the grabber up or down the shank. Right now, the funding goal has yet to be met, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed that it does!
Kickstarter Page
[ Screw Grabber kisses goodbye to lost screws copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
A watch is an opportunity to show something about yourself, and San Francisco-based Modify, a three-year-old startup offering custom-designed products, wants to make it easy for anyone to upload images of their choosing to make their own custom-designed, modular watch faces. They’ve launched a Kickstarter campaign to help them raise cash for their Modify Watches project, which will also… Read More
Don’t lament the fact that your tiny podunk town recently spent all its money on a new waterpark instead of a museum. Thanks to a lifelong dream of Hans Fex, with a donation of as little as $79 you can have a tiny museum of your own sitting on your desk, featuring everything from dinosaur poop, to coal from the Titanic, to small bits of the Cheyablinsk meteorite.
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Even though it has many real-world applications—like as a self-sealing lubricant—ferrofluid’s
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I like backup batteries – I carry more than a few, and they all get used eventually, especially when I travel. But sometimes I worry: What will happen to my portable backup power in case of the The End of Days? Should the world be buried in a never-ending blizzard, or should a meteor impact block out the sun and bury everything in a three-foot layer of ash, will my juice reserves still be operational?
With the Limefuel IP66 Rugged external battery, the answer is yes. The gadget is being crowdfunded on Kickstarter right now (and has already blown past its $30,000 goal in just a few days), offering up a maximum of 15,000 mAh in reserve power, depending on the configuration you choose. Other backup chargers out there offer up that much spare energy (including a number of low-cost options on Amazon), but none offer it in a case that’s quite so rugged.
The L150XR is waterproof, dirtproof, and crush or shock proof (not just ‘resistant,’ you’ll note), and is IP66-certified. For those who aren’t familiar with the ratings system for rugged devices, IP66 means that the pack is completely sealed against dust, and that it can withstand “powerful water jets” from any direction, for up to three minutes, in addition to submersion. You’ll have to have all the flaps closed to ensure that level of protection, of course, but that’s still very impressive.
Other features of the L150XR include that massive capacity, which is good for probably around 10 charges of your smartphone, as well as two charging ports that work simultaneously, and 2A input for faster charging of the backup battery itself (though it’ll still take between 9 and 15 hours to fill it up). It even has pass-through charging (meaning you can charge it and an attached device simultaneously), which is something people missed in the Mophie Powerstation XL I recently reviewed.
Boulder-based Limefuel was founded in November 2012 and already makes charging gadgets for mobile devices, so it stands a good chance of making its projected May 2014 ship date. Pre-orders start at $50 for a lower capacity, 10,400 mAh version, but the big 15,000 mAh edition starts at $70 (still cheaper than many top-end competitors, however).
You may not need the intense environmental resistance the L150XR provides, but on the other hand, there’s no good reason not to have it, either. And if you do back this, know that the end of time, when your phone is long gone and everyone you know has succumbed to high levels of particulate matter in the air, you’ll still have power left in the bank.
The bike share programs that have popped up in major cities around the world make for a cheap way to get around town for a few hours—unless you’re lazy. So if you find yourself suffering from "let’s just take a cab" syndrome, you might want to consider funding this clever little briefcase called the ShareRoller that adds an electric drivetrain to bike share bicycles in just ten seconds.
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Toy cars are a compromise: the simple ones "drive" like a roller skate, and the really serious ones are too intricate (and expensive) to just hand over to a mere child. Modarri Cars wants to change that with fun, customizable, modular toy cars with spring suspension and steering just like the real thing.
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