The Monday Jolt is a new series about microcontrollers and electronics that appears in MAKE every Monday morning. HarvestGeek is an ambitious project to automate a greenhouse or other growing environment through the use of a variety of sensors hooked up wirelessly to an Open Source, Arduino-compatible base station. An additional unit can trigger greenhouse […]
The $19 TrackR is a like a leash between your wallet and your mobile phone.
Got a great invention the world needs to get their hands on? Engadget is offering a hardware talent show of sorts called Insert Coin to help choose tech’s next great gadget. The winner will be chosen by a panel of judges at Expand in San Francisco March 17 and will walk with a $20,000 cash prize and a guaranteed Engadget review. Submissions will be accepted up until Feb. 8 so get busy.
The folks behind the highly anticipated Pebble smart watch, a crowdfunded project that’s now the stuff of Kickstarter legend, say they have some big news to share with backers and the world Jan. 9.
The crowdfunding site GoFundMe has been growing about 20 percent a month for the past year and so far has attracted users raising funds for “life needs” such as weddings, medical expenses, and education. But now GoFundMe is looking to attract makers to their site.
Given the publicity surrounding Kickstarter’s rule changes for hardware projects and funded projects that fail to deliver, it was only a matter of time before someone created an alternative crowdfunding service. It’s already happened. First there was Selfstarter, a site developed by the creators of Lockitron after their project was declined by Kickstater. And now there’s Christie Street, a hardware crowdfunding site that will audit projects before they go live to help ensure product delivery for backers and product success for inventors.
The cautionary tale of the Pebble smartwatch grows a bit longer. Shipment of the Pebble, a Kickstarter star that raised $10 million from backers, has been delayed again and won’t ship by Christmas as promised. The new ship date: “soon.”
