Today’s 10 Coolest Kickstarters
Kickstarter is a treasure trove of weird and wonderful gadgets, software and innovative design feats that could shape our world tomorrow.
Not all of them will see the light of day – in fact a large portion of them won’t – but more than 87,000 Kickstarter projects have now been successfully funded, and 107 have been backed to the tune of $1 million or more. More to the point, Kickstarter is a place for true innovation where anybody can have an idea and get the funding they need to make their dream a reality.
Here are some of the coolest Kickstarter projects out there right now:
This one is epic: a glove fitted with 10 actuators that will allow us to touch the objects we can see through a Virtual Reality headset.
VR has thus far focused solely on sight and sound; if we can add a third sense to the virtual capability arsenal then the goalposts move once again and Virtual Reality becomes a whole new ballgame. Gloveone provides haptic feedback and of course can be used to control your virtual world with gesture-based controls.
The potential for a fully-immersive gaming experience will have the community salivating, too, as will the thought of virtual keyboards and a more natural input system.
We’ve all felt the pain of a hard drive failing, kissing goodbye to our pictures and precious memories (and even some important business data). Of course RAID storage can get around that problem and the Cloud is getting better and better, so this relatively old-fashioned concept could become completely redundant before long. There is something unique, though, about storing data on Sapphire discs that have been tested to 2471 degrees Fahrenheit: the temperature of molten lava.
This laser-etched disk can contain photos, and text with characters of 10 microns and more, which can then be viewed with a digital microscope. Up to 500 photos can fit on to a single disk, too.
At first glance ‘Here’s just looks like wireless headphones, but in fact it’s so much more. It offers you the chance to control your environment through a smartphone.
Yes the headset will play music, but it will also reduce the sound of an aircraft’s engines or a crying baby. It will add reverb to a concert, boost the bass of your favourite tracks and cut out background chatter in the office.
This one seems a little far-fetched, but so far it has raised more than $900,000 in backing. The plan is to create a spaceship no bigger than a breadbin, powered by solar power, which can then make space travel accessible to the masses.
The man behind it, Bill Nye, brings an element of credibility, but it’s still quite an extravagant Kickstarter. The Science Guy, as the TV host is known, has divided the scientific community with his alarmist global warming commentary of late. But he has been an avid supporter of solar sailing for some time and is now working on a prototype to prove his theory that a small spaceship can be powered entirely with solar power.
If he’s right then space exploration as we know it could change forever.
This RPG game is only really remarkable in that it shows the power of the people. The first two games garnered critical acclaim, but the funding for a third was hard to come by until the #saveshenmue hashtag started to circulate and the Kickstarter fund began to raise funds.
With more than $2.8 million raised with 30 days to go, Shenmue III will make it to the PS4 and PC. The next generation will have the finest possible mechanics and the sprawling tale of a girl on the hunt for her father’s killer will finally continue after a 14-year hiatus.
It isn’t exactly a new concept, but it is one that has gathered steam on Kickstarter. Let’s be honest, the big kid in all of us wants a fully functioning lightsaber.
This one won’t exactly cut our enemies down to size, but it does look perfect and with hundreds of interchangeable parts you can create your own custom lightsaber that will make those Star Wars fantasies that little bit closer to reality.
Anybody that has endured that day-long panic of wondering whether they locked their front door would love this creation, which opens the door with a fingerprint recognition system. You don’t need a key, you don’t need a battery in your smartphone. You just need your thumbprint that is registered in the system.
In today’s constantly connected world should we really be limited by the battery life of our computer? No, we shouldn’t. This new device works with MacBooks to provide 13 hours of power before you have to go hunting for an outlet.
Eye-tracking is a big deal in Virtual Reality, but with the Oculus Rift it is an expensive third-party upgrade.
Fove hopes to bring eye-tracking to the masses and aims to make a system so realistic that it will focus along with your eyes and allow for simple line of sight aiming and shooting with eye movements while gaming.
This one won’t change the world, but it is an interesting novelty that has attracted $20,000 of backers. Essentially it turns the toilet bowl into a nightlight to illuminate your way in the dead of night, which will prove useful for those night time emergencies.
Think you’ve got what it takes to invest the next big thing? Get started garnering interest with a website from UK2.