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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgkbhjXTbOE Source: http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/11/after-raising-record-3-4m-on-kickstarter-uk-drone-startup-collapses/ The whole point of this issue is a successful kickstarter campaign ending in a devastating collapse The company promised a lot of drones to consumers and contributors, but they failed to ship almost all of the promised units I think that there should really be a better platform for creators to get funds, but the contributors should also have a better idea of what the company is getting into I'm not sure how the company can solve this problem, or address the problems to those who have contributed to their huge project which garnered so much attention

We all knew that this day was coming.... Someone is working on the fascinating eJaculator. The basic concept is a VR headset and a physically moving fleshlight... The campaign is currently in Indiegogo. You can see how it looks from the picture below. You can see the insertion part in the picture as well as some specs. To demonstrate it even further, the made a totally not at all cringe Youtube video for the product. As you can tell from the people who have tested it, it looks somewhat promising. Even Huffingtonpost has written an article about the product. They crushed their 48.000$ indiegogo goal getting over 80.000$ from backers. Why should you be interested? It's certainly an interesting product. However I'm not sure that it's something I would buy, yet. Is it worth around 125$? If it works as it should, I honestly think it's a fair price tag, if you get the headset, the "toy" and the app. If I'd be able to catch a free test sample, I'd test it right away. Still, I'm not sure how to really feel about it. While in one way, this is where the future is heading, I'm not sure how the reality feeling of the VR is. If major companies spend years and years and still not releasing any consumer product, I'm not sure that this minor company has too much to come with, but I could be wrong. Going to be interesting to see what the consumers say when (or if) they get their samples Link to indiegogo page: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ejaculator-vr-headset-sync-d-stroking-adult-toy#/story Link to Huffingtonpost: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ejaculator-sex-toy-lets-you-feel-porn-star-bump-and-grind_560d6f87e4b076812701129e

I stumbled upon this Kickstarter campagin: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1183837546/boxtiox-no-power-no-problem and was wondering what you guys think of this. I love the idea of being able to charge my laptop or power a fan, or even modem and router during a power outage or when camping. This is the first thing other than goal zero (which is horribly overpriced) that I have seen with AC outlets and USB. I'm thinking about backing this project. What do you guys think?

So after backing that pretty nifty laser razor product that was talked about on the WAN show a couple weeks back, I receive the following email from Kickstarter: Hello, This is a message from Kickstarter’s Integrity team. We’re writing to notify you that the Skarp Laser Razor project has been suspended, and your pledge has been canceled. After requesting and reviewing additional material from the creator of the project, we’ve concluded that it is in violation of our rule requiring working prototypes of physical products that are offered as rewards. Accordingly, all funding has been stopped and backers will not be charged for their pledges. No further action is required on your part. Suspensions cannot be undone. We take the integrity of the Kickstarter system very seriously. We only suspend projects when we find evidence that our rules are being violated. Regards, Kickstarter Integrity Team So after reaching over 4 Million in funding, the laser razor got banhammered pretty hard by Kickstarter. Here is the link to the KS page for the project: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/skarp/the-skarp-laser-razor-21st-century-shaving ​ ​

So yeah, was browsing the Kickstarter, found this (also available in black): Basically a mini-ITX case that obviously looks like a trash can Mac Pro. SFX PSU, a graphics card up to 185 mm long and two 2.5" drives. There's no way Apple is not suing them, IMO. Although I guess half the charm of Apple system is the shared heatsink for all the components which this does not posess... What do you think about it guys? Not putting out a DP connector seems like a considerable issue to me...

Amazon link if you absolutely MUST have one of these: http://geni.us/gFp Have you been burned by a crappy crowd funded product? So have we.

Hey everyone, I’m doing some research to gauge the interest in an upcoming game I’m developing. The game is a throwback to the browser MMO strategy games I use to play when I was younger. After getting back into the genre earlier this year by playing Arch Battle, I was left a bit underwhelmed. I wanted something with a bit more depth and a UI that holds up to today’s standards of web design. So that brings me to where I am now. I’m pumping a lot of my free time to code this game and I just want to ensure when it launches there will be a large enough user base to keep the game alive. I do actually have a Kickstarter going which will help out a lot if it gets funded - [link removed] - but whether the campaign is successful or not I am going to finish the game. I hope this doesn’t come across as an ad for my Kickstarter because this is truly a passion project that I am making as much for myself to play as to hopefully create a successful game. Thanks guys! Heres a description of what the game will be: What is Fleet Wars? Fleet Wars is a browser based massively multiplayer turn based strategy game. The game is primarily text based, but will be packed full of beautiful 3D art and pre-rendered animations. The aim of the game is to rise up the rankings and become the most powerful empire in the universe. You will achieve your ranking by exploring, acquiring new planets and exploiting their resources to grow your population and drive your need to create the most powerful ships with the most advanced technologies. You will research your way through the tech tree to unlock the most powerful weapons and gain the knowledge to build ship classes like Dreadnoughts and the Star Destroyer. Once you have your first fleet, attack an opponent and fight for your place at the top of the leader board. Monetisation Model: Fleet Wars is free to play with nothing locked behind a paywall. The websites monetisation will be primarily driven by non-intrusive ads. In addition to this there will be a subscription model (advanced membership) which will remove the ads from all pages and unlock additional cosmetic customisation options. What the Game Will Include: Fleet Wars will forever be an evolving game. New features will constantly be added and balancing the game will be a top priority. Below is a list of the features that will be included in the initial release of the game. - Expeditions to find new planets - Planet Management - Economy Management - Design your own Ship - Commander leveling - Create a fleet of ships for each Commander - Research Tech Tree - Tech Tree will consist of passive bonuses, new weapons and new ship classes - Guilds - Declare War on other Guilds - Guild Rankings - Attack other players and NPC's - Text summary of how the battle played out - Steal other players Technologies - Raid other players planets - Destroy or steal other players planets

Source: http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/18/9758214/coolest-cooler-amazon-kickstater-shipping-production-delay Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryangrepper/coolest-cooler-21st-century-cooler-thats-actually The concept of the Coolest cooler was supposed to be a cooler that did everything for you, but it looks like some backers are furious due to the countless number of delays The worst part is that some backers won't get their coolers at the given release date, and some backers are questioning the company's move to sell the cooler on Amazon I'm really wondering how the company will respond after the many times they failed to deliver to their contributors

Hi Linus and everyone else, I just got back from a party celebrating the launching of a Kickstarter by my neighbor. I thought I would post this on the forum just raise support and as a suggestion for Channel Super Fun. The Campaign is for Futpong. A small sidewalk based game which is kind of a mix of soccer and ping pong. I was introduced to it at our neighborhood block parties but Curt (the main guy) has recently developed it into a more sophisticated product and branding that is better than the old pile of 2x4s to say the least. Futpong is mainly advertised to increase soccer skills but I like it just as a fun game to play with friends. Please check out the Kickstarter in the following link to learn more and watch the video about this cool game. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/futpong/futpong-play-the-fun-soccer-meets-tennis-sidewalk?ref=nav_search Thanks, Sudo Chocolate

The game is still being Kickstarted but they just released a trailer for it... and omg it looks sexy... I played it as a kid and when backed the campaign almost as soon as it started... seeing this video only makes me want it more!

Was looking around on kickstarter and found this: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/471996800/titanium-mini-q-a-key-organizer-and-knife-for-everthought it was a pretty cool idea and is practical for people like Linus who has their lanyard with keys and his box opening knife on. What do you all think of it? Is it something you could see yourself owning?

This may have been posted before, i did a quick check to and didn't find anything Here is a functional, 360 degree YouTube video, i.e. you can rotate around the shot. Its pretty cool that YouTube actually already supports this feature, you can pan using the arrows in the top left of the video. The quality is naturally very low being a prototype and the audio is very off-putting, however this is really cool to watch and explore. Pictured is electronics guru Dave from the EEVBlog talking about the camera and also the developers are in the room too. Link: Note: you have to watch it on the YouTube website

Mozilla's Firefox OS based Chromecast competitor has been delayed six months for early backers on Kickstarter. In a recent email to backers/update on the Kickstarter page, Mozilla stated that they want to update the hardware citing that a "number of exciting applications and potential experiences for Matchstick and we’ve determined we need to give it as much power as possible." Later in the email, it was revealed that the main "exciting application and potential experience" is adding DRM to the platform. As you can imagine, many are upset at this change. Backers were promised a sample in February of 2015 and Mozilla has decided to opt to change the entire hardware platform in favor of adding DRM. The device was also coined as "hacked Chromecast type device" and DRM contradicts the whole, "hacker's Chromecast" ethos. Personally, I am on the fence about this decision. I can see why Mozilla wanted to add DRM, so that the Matchstick would be compatible with more popular services, and thus making it more popular than it would be otherwise (which is a lost cause anyway since the Chromecast is dominating the market right now). However, I feel like Mozilla should have shipped the backers their samples, and then worked on a new revision of the device (even if that would have required more funding). SOURCE: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/matchstick/matchstick-the-streaming-stick-built-on-firefox-os/posts/1128155?ref=backer_project_update

Alex Fundora not responding to emails; Artist says he has not been paid and is moving onto another project. he Stomping Land, a planned multiplayer dinosaur-survival game that raised $114,000 on Kickstarter, is now in a critical state with its art lead quitting and its creator not responding to emails. In June 2013, The Stomping Land Kickstarter project managed to raise more than $114,000 from 4,400 backers, having initially only asked for $20,000. A year later, a first build of the project was published on Steam Early Access, and at the time its lead developer--Alex Fundora--assured that However, this would mark the final update on the game's Kickstarter page. Now, the game's lead artist has quit the project and says he hasn't been able to establish contact with Fundora in weeks. In-game model designer, Vlad Konstantino, wrote on The Stomping Land forums: Konstantino also claimed that Fundora owes him money, and that The message, first brought to light by PC Gamer, adds that Konstantino is now working on a different project entirely. One backer, who said they had invested $90 in The Stomping Land, has informed Kickstarter of the issue, but the crowd-funding site could only offer an apology in return. It is not clear if Kickstarter can or will take any further action. Source : http://www.gamespot.com/articles/after-raising-114-000-on-kickstarter-dev-goes-sile/1100-6425367/

So I just came across this cable project on kickstarter. Its called the TOB cable and the idea is that this one single cable can replace all cables. The cable itself is made from "heavy gauge copper wires and an optical fiber" and then the ends of the cable are totally removable and interchangeable. I would assume that the ends would have to have some sort of chip on the that would do the processing of the data, converting it from electrical to optical and then back to electrical. This reminds me of the 3.Optical cable that was reviewed by the gang a few months ago. The idea seems pretty cool to me and I am seriously contemplating backing it. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/janulus/tob-cable-one-cable-for-everything EDIT: fellow forum member @Rafy has written up a nice article about it, and also had a chance to speak with the creator of the project to clarify how the fast charging works. That article can be foind here: http://engineeringlikesdesign.com/2015/02/21/tob-kickstarter/

Ok so i was wondering if by any chance it was in any way legal for me to go onto kickstarter and ask for money to fund me buying a PC. Now i am building a PC soon but i was wondering if it is legal to just ask them to help fund me as i am pretty young being 16, however i did not want to get into any trouble with any legal violations. Now i realize that kickstarter is a website that is used to start companies but i was just wondering if i was able to do this? Anyways thank you

If this is in the wrong section, I'll be damned. It's technically tech news. So, basically, a man from Ireland had a few drinks with his friends and decided how awesome it would be to build the house of the character Michael from Grand Theft Auto V. It's technically feasible, and the guy only wants 1.6M euros to do it. Thanks to @as96 LINK: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1511431587/michaels-house-from-gta5-real-life-build

Why would anyone want destroy a piece of hardware ? that's just wrong A Kickstarter campaign is aiming to raise over $20,000 to destroy a rare 20th Anniversary Edition PlayStation 4 console. Many of those lucky enough to get their hands on one of these consoles swiftly took to eBay to sell them for absurdly high prices but Charles Tiongson wants his PS4 to suffer a different fate. The campaign starter resides in Las Vegas and intends to film himself smashing up the console. The exact figure he is looking for is $20,300, although the logic behind it seems a bit flawed. According to the Kickstarter page, because someone out there was crazy enough to buy a 20th Anniversary Edition PS4 on eBay for $20,100, he should get $200 more than that in order to destroy one. The console will get an unboxing video before being torn apart and those who back more than $50 will get a piece of broken PS4 sent to them. The campaign doesn’t have many backers currently, having only raised $121 so far. Unfortunately there is no real way of telling if this will take off, after all, people did Kickstart potato salad last year, so breaking a rare PS4 isn’t completely out of the question. Kickstarter : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/525806483/break-my-playstation-4-20th-anniversary-edition Source : http://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/console-desktop-pc/matthew-wilson/kickstarter-campaign-wants-20300-to-destroy-anniversary-edition-ps4/

The Tob cable is the last cable you will ever need, supposedly. It promises faster charging, faster file transfer (vs usb2) and hd video. "The TOB cable connector is easily plugged in and it’s circular design means there is no wrong way, it unplugs easily and protects your connectors if someone pulls on the cable." this is the first mildly successful Icelandic kick starter project. Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/janulus/tob-cable-one-cable-for-everything/description

Hi Linus Media group and Forum members, I've been a avid watcher of the Techtips and Techquickie YouTube channels and over the years I have come to find that you are a pretty big fan of sound quality and high resolution audio. On to the question at hand, my father recently forward me an e-mail containing and Kickstarter for what essentially looks to be a mobile device DAC! Pretty cool I think, they have one for Android (Lollipop exclusive) and one for Apple devices, I don't know if there are any competing product out there like this yet and I'd be interested in getting better sound out of my mobile devices. The company looks legit and the product seems promising but I'd be interested in your feedback! Thank for reading this and your much appreciated feedback. Thank you kindly Kickstarter Site: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1698830754/dsp-making-your-headphones-sound-better Manufacture's Site: http://www.hirestech.com/

Pebble Time Review Couple of weeks ago I received my Pebble time. While the shipping process was relatively painless it how ever was not cheap. To give context this is my first smartwatch that I have ever used. None of the other smartwatches in the market didn't really excite me because all of them lacked in one major aspect. either its the battery life or performance or design. For me the most important thing a smartwatch should excel at is delivering the notifications and messages from my phone to my wrist. And just like the original pebble and the pebble steel, pebble time does this extraordinarily. Just having the option to glance at a notification and deciding to dismiss it or react to it on the watch itself or to pull out the phone is such a paradigm shift that I never thought I would enjoy that much. Speaking of watches, how good is it at showing the time?. If you never connected the pebble time to a phone and just have it on your wrist it would function admirably as a regular watch. With the pebble times color E-paper display you can always see the time without having to do any flicking motion or pressing buttons. Where most other smartwatch screens fail when there is an abundance of ambient light, Pebble time screen shines during the day time. Literally. The light reflects off of the E-paper display and shows you the information. but not to worry there is a backlight that comes on when you press any button that can also be set to turn on with motion. although I have that feature turned off. While the screen is very good at displaying what ever its supposed to, How good it looks is somewhat debatable. Here is what i think.because of its low contrast and probably low refresh rate it's not good for displaying pictures or watching videos. That is certain. But for what the color e-paper display is used, I think it's perfect for this use case. Where most people would knock some points off for a lackluster display I applaude Pebble for making a conscious decision to go with a E-paper display rather than a OLED hence not compromising on one of the best things about this smart watch. its battery life. Since I have been using the Pebble time I have realised that it has been designed from the ground up to be the best in class when it comes to its fuel economy. Technical specs aside Pebble Time lasts for just over seven days for me. I’m not the person that gets hundreds of notifications a day, but from my experiance with it I can tell that it should last for at least four days for the most heavy user. That is double the time that you can get from a android wear smartwatch at best. That’s impressive. So what can you do with seven days for battery life on the Pebble time? Time smartwatch sports the latest operating system that uses the all new “Timeline UI”. Essentially it will show you agenda in three categories namely Past activities, Present, and Future. Using the Up and Down you can see the past and Future respectively. For me calendar appointments showed up on the timeline and that was all I needed. Im sure there are many more apps you can get that hooks in to this function. When a notification or a text message is received to the pebble time, you are greeted with the usual set of options to interact with it. For example it gives you the option to reply to a text message with a preset message or with voice. which i will talk about soon. For IMs like Facebook messenger you also get to “LIKE” that message. Oh and it can also reply with emojis as well. This also brings up a gripe that i have with the notification system on both the pebble side and android in general. there is no way to get back to notifications that you have dismissed. Also once a notification is dismissed on the phone the pebble time has no way of knowing that it has happened so it continues to display it and gives the user to interact with it that eventually leads to a fail. I wish someone would find the solution for this already. As I mentioned earlier pebble time has a built in mic that allows you to dictate replies for text and IMs. If you have ever used s-voice and thought that it's worse that crap, fear not its actually good. while i'm not sure what kind of a back end service it uses to do the voice recognition I know that it works surprisingly good. It was able to consistently and accurately pickup my words even in a noisy environment. I think it speaks to the quality of the mic and the voice recognition service that pebble is using. Though keep in mind that just like Google now Voice will not work without a live internet connection to your phone. All is well up till now, but there are some shortcomings to this well rounded smartwatch that I have to talk about. For starters the built quality is between the original pebble and the pebble steel. which is to say that it was a lot better than i thought it would be knowing that it was not a steel version. But the buttons was a big disappointment for me. Button placement did bother me at all. It was the tactile response or the lack thereof. the only worse buttons that I have used is on my nexus 7 2013 tablet. Also I wish there was a way to feel which button I was about to press with a small bump on the middle button. I can't believe they missed that. This pissed me off a lot. The plastic/rubber coating on the metal bezel seems to easily scratched off. I had a huge gash at the end of the first day. and after that I gave up hope on trying to keep it unscratched. But there are some good news. The Glass screen is holding up very well despite me bumping it on to metal surfaces quite a few time. Since I have been using this product I have been asking myself “who is this for?’. Well I think there are two types of people that will be satisfied with this. People that want something that will last for days on battery and deliver notifications to their wrist without looking too bad. And then there's the iPhone users that don't want pay a the price of a decent Android phone to get a Apple Watch. I you are in one or both of those categories then the Pebble TIme is for you.

On June 11th, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night became the most funded videogame Kickstarter, but has now been beat by Shenmue 3 with a current total of around 5,7 million dollars with 8 hours left on the Kickstarter. Shenmue 3 was first revealed at the Sony E3 Press Conference and reached its goal of two million in under nine hours. If you want to donate there's a couple of hours left, and a whole bunch of perks. It's dated for release sometime in 2017 for PS4 and PC. Source: http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/17/8988117/shenmue-3-kickstarter-biggest-game

I don't know if anyone has talked about this in here, but for all the car fans out there, this is a true master piece. LINK: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/473961744/street-tuning-evolution Street Tuning Evolution is the most interactive and in-depth game for any auto enthusiast. Visually and mechanically build and tune your cars for open world street racing, drag racing, drifting or even showing off your rides online with friends. A massive online modding community and un-paralleled realism ensure Street Tuning Evolution is limited only by your creativity. Game features Our new game will bring you many new features without forgetting what you love in Street Legal. Full car customization as it were before. Hands-on optical and mechanical tuning. Disassemble and assemble the entire car yourself to build the perfect race car. If you haven't experienced the garage mechanics in our older Street Legal Series, here is a quick video. The garage gameplay is what makes it so special, we won't forget that with our new project. You'll love the new and improved gameplay that stays true to its roots. Freedom to do what you want, how you want. You can leave your car as is, or you can tune it to squeeze out that extra bit of power. You can buy upgrade parts to be more competitive in racing. If you crash your car, it's up to you if you want to fix the whole car or just parts of it at a time to save money. Don't want to drive with your hood or other body parts on the car? You don't have to! Community Member's Custom Street Legal Ride - Click for more. Real Dynamic Damage Take your car out on the street to race for money or pinks. Drag racing, road and street racing, as well as drifting will ensure there is something for everyone. With your support in meeting stretch goals, perhaps combine these experiences into one map - with road and drag racing tracks integrated into the city map for an awesome free roam experience on and offline. Video by a member of our awesome community ! Online Multiplayer is easily the most requested feature for our new game. With your support in reaching our stretch goals, we can turn multiplayer wishes into a reality. Choose how you play in the diverse world of Street Tuning Evolution. Enjoy the freedom of an open world map and race through the streets or take it to the track and compete against your friends. Anything from drifting to dragging - circuit racing to car shows, or just a relaxing cruise on the highway. Take a step forward into the future of car simulation with Street Tuning Evolution. Game Tech - Unreal engine We know physics are the most important part of any racing game which is why we have completely re-engineered the Invictus physics engine. We believe we now have the capability to deliver the most accurate body, running gear and engine simulation ever to appear in racing games. As each of our vehicles is constructed from separate physics objects with their own physical properties, we are able to include the following features in our games: - Accurate simulation of internal engine damage - Vehicles constructed from more than 50 individual parts - Complete body deformation including flapping doors and other attached parts - Vehicles can fall apart in crashes or over time - Car-body painting and customization method including decals - Real time and in-game tuning, repairing and assembling capabilities - Realistic handling of 4 -16 wheeled vehicles - Accurate simulation of the effects of air and fluids (e.g. water) - Simulation of front, rear and all wheel drive vehicles - Surface simulation parameters allowing for on and off road driving conditions - Novel application of Dyno 2000 simulation based on real world parameters For this project we combine our latest physics engine with the awesome power of Unreal Engine 4. We know this new game must look as good as it feels. With the Unreal game engine we have the latest cutting edge technology to create a high quality game with no compromises. The level of graphical detail and realism we can achieve with this game engine is stunning. More importantly we have the power to provide consistent, scalable art. We know that a game that can look good on low settings as well as high is more widely accessible and with UE4 it will be possible. Unreal Engine provides with us with the most reliable performance, stability and compatibility. UE4 will run smooth on your average to high range computer hardware configuration. Haven't seen the Unreal Engine render graphics in real time? Here are some examples. When we look at the community around street legal we know its all about modding. Modding has made it possible for this game to survive the past ten years. We know that its very important to support modding with this new game and we want to make it easier. Photo Collection from our awesome modding community ! This time around we take it a step further, you will enjoy the tools in addition to documentation for modding the game. You can quickly create addon vehicles , parts and tracks with the help of specific software designed to create content. Many parts of the game will be tunable including physics. This game will be built from the ground up with the future in mind. It will be modular and expandable. What this means for you is that you don't have to hope that the game is exactly the way you want it to be out of the box. If there is something you don't like, you have the freedom to change it so that its exactly the way you want it to be. We want to see this game offer a better experience for modders than street legal ever did. And more than anything we want to make this game with you, the community. You know exactly what you want, and we are here to listen and create that game for you. The best way to make this is happen is with your support here on kickstarter. Cutting out the publisher allows us the freedom to create the game exactly how you want it. No publisher means we can offer this game to you at a lower cost. It means we have the freedom to give you full modding support. Without a publisher to give us deadlines or mandates, it helps us create a game that is stable and bug free the first time around. We also have the freedom to change the direction of the game with your input. If the community feels our alpha release needs changes, big or small - we can do it together. This wouldn't be possible within the restrictions of having a publisher with us. This is a community project and this time you are in control. Funding GoalsWhen we decided to take the route of crowd funding this game we knew that we had to make sure our base goal was realistic. We want to see this game happen as much as you do. Our base goal for this campaign is as low as possible, this will allow us to develop the bare minimum needed to make this game happen. However it's important that we strive to reach the higher stretch goals so that we can develop a complete game with more content. Risks and challengesVideo games are complex projects with many elements and components. It's impossible to define the exact release date of a final product. Fortunately however Invictus Games ltd. is no newcomer and we have successfully developed many complex projects like this. We are more experienced and prepared than ever before. Street Tuning Evolution’s schedule has been planned carefully. We know it's tricky to accurately detail a development timeline for a project like this. Our target release date of April 2016 allows us thirteen months for development. In comparison Street Legal Redline had six months of development. Furthermore, various systems and tools developed for our earlier projects can be used or adapted for Street Tuning Evolution, saving development time and budget. This isn't our first run-around. Our first few games have taught us a lot about development challenges and planning. We know how much time and money it takes to complete a project of this size. Above everything we have experience in unforeseen setbacks and challenges, so we have allowed for extra time in our development schedule to balance this. Our team is expanding with more and more field experts, we are using the best game engine on the market in conjunction with what we believe to be the most advanced and accurate physics simulation. Choosing to crowd fund this project and not use a publisher means more stability, community requested features and modding support. It means we can create the game you want within the development timeline we know we need in order to release a polished stable retail version. We are more prepared than ever to complete the game that we know the community really wants. The bottom line is, we know there will be risks, challenges and setbacks that we can't see right now, every project of this size will experience these. What we have is our experience in dealing with these situations and our expertise in overcoming them and moving forward. ============================================ I loved playing this game when I was a kid, played it later on in my teen days and even now, if it wasn't for the headaches the old engine gives me, I'd still be playing it to this day. Really awesome work from the community to keep this game alive. I'd back this if I had the money.. (Sorry if there's a double post, I don't quite know how to use LTT forums xc)

The last review I made was mostly a joke, so I’m going to do a serious review this time. I swear. This tiny little USB oddity is the Geek Out 720. Linus made a video about the Geek Out 450, but this is the more powerful 720. The model numbers come from the output wattage of each device. Now Geek Out is a product of Light Harmonic, a pretty well-known audio maker in the hi-fi/audiophile community. So when they began a Kickstarter to create a USB AMP/DAC that only used USB power and could play everything up to DSD, Head-fi of course lost their collective minds. I can’t even begin talking about this device without explaining Kickstarter to all those people living under a rock since 2009, but Kickstarter is a “crowd funding” platform in where people can throw money at various “projects”, including everything from hoverboards to potato salad. As you’ve probably already guessed, I’m a pretty skeptical person, and I’ll tell you right now I’m NOT a venture capitalist. That profession is not for the strongly purse-stringed or poorly financed, and I, my friends, am both. So It goes without saying I’m not exactly all about the new throw your money at strangers (sometimes MONTHLY) model of funding creative people and hoping you get your contribution rewards. So please read this review with the prior knowledge my bias against anything “crowd funded” is quite strong. The Geek Out features a 24bit/192kbps DAC and a 32bit/6.144MHz DSD DAC that is connected to an amplifier that features two separate headphone outputs. One has a .47 Ohms output impedance and the other has a 47 Ohm output impedance and thus doubles as a line out. On the side are two … buttons, but we’ll get to those later when I rant about the software. The case has a high quality feel and everything holds together solidly. For a device with this many features it’s certainly crammed into a very small and transportable container. Cramming, of course, will increase the heat output, and this device feels hot like a toaster after being plugged in for about 10 minutes. Included are an extension cable and a little carry pouch. It was easy enough to throw it into my laptop bag with all my other cables and doodads for my weekly travels. Now let’s shift to the important part that I wanted to talk about. The firmware. This is one reason why I haven’t written a review on this item until now. It simply did not work. Well, let me rephrase that. The volume control was outright dangerous to your hearing. This device in order to be fancy and new uses the UAC2 standard audio driver in Windows, Mac, and Linux. That’s a perfectly acceptable notion in Mac and Linux since the standard is fully implemented, but in Windows there is a bit of competition between the MASTER of the computer’s volume and the MASTER of the device’s volume. The resulting Windows driver bug makes it so anytime the volume on the GO720 is adjusted after a re-plug it’s re-set to MAX on the device side since the windows master volume takes over. At least that was LH’s story about the bug, as they explained on their forums. I’m sorry to say this sort of thing is simply unacceptable at any rate. (I never tried the DSD feature because DSD is stupid.) The good news is if you’re considering a device like this is that the problems have all been fixed. Or rather, the feature to control volume on the device has been removed in the latest firmware along with the “3D awesomefier” feature. The volume up and down buttons now only change the DAC roll off instead. So as long as you don’t mind installing drivers and upgrading the firmware, which I honestly found very easy, the device will become quite functional. My recommendation therefore is simple. If you like hassles and firmware upgrades on super-hot running devices, I’d give this little item a shot. Other than that I might have to tack it up along with all the other poorly managed and unfinished projects that have come out of Kickstarter in the last few years. Honestly, my advice on Kickstarter is much simpler to begin with – Never Once.

I first saw this concept through a video by Luke. It is a controller that is realistic, innovative, and will be ready around the same time as Oculus VR. This controller will be one, if not the best, controller for Oculus VR in the near future. Kickstarter Announcement Video Kickstarter Page https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1781631932/mad-genius-precision-motion-gaming-any-console-any?ref=category I am just hoping to promote their kickstarter. It ends November 15, 2014. I hope that this project gets off the ground. Thanks. -177