HTC’s phone keyboard is pestering users with ads
It’s one thing to voluntarily put up with ads on your phone in return for a lower price or free apps, but it’s another to have ads delivered without warning… and unfortunately, HTC owners are dealing with that right now. An updated TouchPal keyboard (which HTC uses as its default on some devices) has started serving banner ads to unsuspecting users of phones like the HTC 10. You’re not stuck with the keyboard, of course, but most people would rather not have to switch keyboards just to avoid crass commercialism (and, for that matter, reclaim screen real estate).
We’ve asked HTC for comment and will let you know what it says. At first glance, though, it looks like HTC was just as surprised as anyone else. It’s asking users to uninstall TouchPal’s updates, and TouchPal itself has claimed that a server issue led to the unwanted promos. Whatever the exact cause, it looks like a mistake — TouchPal flipped the wrong virtual switch and started sending ads to customers who were never supposed to see them.
Nevertheless, the incident highlights the risks of outsourcing system software. If a manufacturer doesn’t write their own code (or trust it to an OS developer like Google), it’s harder for them to avoid surprises like this. The mess also hurts HTC’s image, however briefly — and the company really doesn’t need that black eye when it’s still losing cash.
Source: Reddit, HTC (Twitter)
A library at your fingertips: The best free Kindle books
It’s often tough to fathom that Amazon’s Kindle, the predominant ebook reader of the decade thus far, has been around for nearly a decade. Even though Amazon has since made proper tablets, such as Amazon Fire HD 7 Kids Edition the Amazon Fire HD 8, the Kindle remains overwhelmingly popular. The ebook marketplace is more than just robust, however, and there is a myriad of titles available via Amazon, Google Play, and an array of other sources. To help you sort through the masses, we’ve rounded up some of the best free Kindle books, including public domain works and self-published titles. Never before has it been so easy to become a master of literature without trekking to the library.
Are you a book-loving, literature aficionado? If so, take a glance at the best sites for downloading free audiobooks.
A note before you begin…
Google Play does not offer books using Kindle’s proprietary format in the way Amazon and Project Gutenberg do. Instead of AZW and KF8 files, users are going to want to directly download Google Play books as PDF files, thus rendering the books compatible with Kindle. To do so, navigate to your Google Play Book library, click the three squares in the upper-right corner of any title and select “Download PDF” from the resulting drop-down list. Afterward, select your desired save location and drag and drop the resulting file from your computer to your device once finished downloading.
Children’s Books
Peter Pan and Wendy by J.M. Barrie
Inspired by Barrie’s friendship with Llewelyn Davies family, Peter Pan Wendy is essentially the classic tale of Peter Pan, a boy who can fly and whisks a group of young children away to Neverland. All the usual suspects make their debut (Tiger Lily, Tinker Bell, the Lost Boys, Captain Hook, etc.), but it might not seem as blatantly offensive to Native Americans as the 1953 Disney film.
Download now from:
Amazon Google
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
There are very few people who are oblivious to Dorothy’s cyclone-fueled romps in Oz with Wicked Witch of the West, yet revisiting the Kansas native’s harrowing quest for the Emerald City is always somehow reassuring. The Tin Woodman, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow all add to Baum’s descriptive and vivid world. Victor Fleming’s music doesn’t quite do the novel the justice it deserves.
Download now from:
Amazon Google
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
A touchstone in the realm of children’s literature, Burnett’s classic has been adapted time and time again for both the stage and the big screen. It revolves around heroine Mary Lenno, an orphan who’s shipped off from her colonial India to live on a dingy county estate in Yorkshire. There she learns the healing power of friendship through plant cultivation in her, ahem, secret garden. So heartwarming, yet insightful.
Download now from:
Amazon Google
Grimm’s Fairy Tales by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
The brothers Grimm wrote fairy tales that were aptly, rather grim, but many of the beloved tales have undergone edits and numerous alterations to the point where they’ve become suitable for children rather than the grotesque, violence-laden stories they once were. You know the tales — Rapunzel, Cinderella, Hansel, and Gretel — but there are also plenty of great standouts that weren’t made into animated films.
Download now from:
Amazon Google
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
Swift’s classic tale is both a satire on human nature and simply one man’s fantastical voyages to uncharted lands. Among the many journeys along the way, Lemuel Gulliver meets a race of horses, an island inhabited by 6-inch people and the Emperor of Japan. It’s teeming with political undercurrents, albeit fictional, and has never gone out of print since making its initial debut in 1726. Talk about enduring.
Download now from:
Amazon Google
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi by Rudyard Kipling
It should go without saying, kids love animals. Kipling’s tale, culled as a standalone story from The Jungle Book, follows a valiant mongoose who works to defend his adopted family of British colonials from a menacing pair of cobras upon their arrival in India. Sure, you may need to explain some of the subtle Victorianisms to younger audiences, but the harrowing story exhibits some of the most vibrant and sharp personification of any novel in existence.
Download now from:
Amazon
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
As one of my favorite childhood books, it makes me all warm-and-fuzzy inside knowing Grahame’s classic is readily available free of charge. It’s about four anthropomorphised animals — Toad, Mole, Rat, and Badger — and their various escapades in the English countryside. It’s chalk-full of adventure, companionship, and moral reasoning, written by the former secretary of the Bank of England as bedtime stories for his son Alistair.
Download now from:
The Ghost Files by Apryl Baker
Mattie Hathaway is a 16-year-old girl with a terrible secret. Ever since her mother tried to kill her when she was five, she’s been able to see dead people of the spectral variety. When the ghost of her foster sister turns up, Mattie enlists the help of a young policeman to investigate her disappearance, but they better tread carefully because there’s a serial killer at work. This is smart teen fiction with plenty of twists and turns.
Download now from:
Amazon
Sweetgreen’s app is the first to send calorie info straight to Apple Health
Why it matters to you
Keeping track of your calories consumed can be hard work, but Sweetgreen wants to make it easier with this new Apple Health integration.
If you’re counting calories these days (as so many of us are), chances are most of those calories are coming from salad. And if you’re eating a lot of salad, chances are you’re taking many a trip to Sweetgreen, the restaurant chain that has somehow managed to make vegetables go mainstream. And now, Sweetgreen’s app will let you track your intake more easily than ever by allowing you to apply calorie counts to your Apple Health data anytime you place an order through the app.
While a number of companies allow you to order via mobile (Starbucks lets you skip the line this way, too), it would appear that Sweetgreen’s connection to Apple Health is the first of its kind. The latest version of the Sweetgreen app comes with an “Add to Health” button in its interface. Once you’ve placed your order, you can decide whether or not to include some or all of the items in your cart to the Health app.
This could certainly be a useful function for calorie-conscious folks who would otherwise have to manually log this information in another app. But having Sweetgreen do it for you essentially cuts out any additional steps in between, making living a healthier lifestyle all the more convenient. This is also particularly useful for Health app users as Apple’s app still doesn’t have a central database of foods, which means that if you want to enter the number of calories consumed in a meal, you have to already know what that count is. You are unable (as of yet) to simply add that you ate a serving of lettuce and a quarter cup of tofu — Health won’t know what to do with that information.
This is by no means the first time that Sweetgreen has shown itself to be quite forward-thinking. Last year, the restaurant chain announced that in 2017, it would be going cashless, becoming one of the few fast food chains to insist upon either credit cards or mobile payment options. So if you’re planning on salad for dinner tonight, make sure you’ve got some plastic in your wallet and are placing your order through the Sweetgreen app.
Is Amazon working on a new messaging app? Anytime could be a game changer
Why it matters to you
Messaging apps appear to be the most popular tools in our digital day and age, and now, Amazon is trying to get in on that game.
Could it be? A new messaging app from Amazon? According to new reports, the online retail giant (which has now expanded well beyond e-commerce), is working on a messaging app called Anytime. As initially reported by AFTV News, Amazon has started surveying customers about a brand new messaging tool to determine what features are most desirable and important. And as per one respondent, the content of the survey suggested that the app is nearly ready.
Anytime is described by AFTV News as an “all-in-one feature rich service that could even rival social networks.” While the primary purpose of the app would be messaging, either by way of text or calls (in both the voice and video varieties), Anytime might also allow users to share photos with @mentions, and even edit those photos with filters and “special effects and masks.” Moreover, Amazon’s new app is said to allow for group activities, too, like playing games, listening to music, and ordering food. So really, it’s like WhatsApp meets Instagram meets Spotify meets Seamless … or something like that.
And in these supremely safety-conscious times, Anytime purports to ensure the privacy of your chats, and can also let users “encrypt important messages like bank account details.” Why would you be messaging about your bank account details? Apparently because you can also use Anytime to chat with businesses, make restaurant reservations, and obviously, online shop.
To ensure quick user adoption, Amazon is apparently letting you “reach all your friends just using their name.” No email address, no phone number, nothing else is supposedly needed in order to use the app. While it’s still unclear as to how that would really work, chances are, Anytime integrates with existing social media and messaging platforms to make things easier. We don’t yet know when Anytime would launch, but it’s said to be able to work across both desktop and mobile, and will be available for both Android and iOS users.
So keep a weather eye out, friends. You could soon be chatting with your friends about what you guys want to eat for dinner and ordering said dinner all from one Amazon app.
Just when we thought it was ‘slow’ … we have a few strong months of Android ahead
Don’t be lulled into thinking the year is done — we have several big phone launches left in 2017.
On the media side of things, we usually refer to the time after the spring smartphone launches as a “slow” period. Samsung, LG, HTC, OnePlus, Sony and others all launched flagship phones across April, May and June — that gave us plenty to talk about, but we also had lots of time to talk about it as we waited for the next cycle of releases in the fall.
Well it’s just the middle of July, and the next few months are already looking rather interesting. Motorola, Samsung, LG and Google all have big time phones to release, and those are just the ones we know about. The second half of 2017 is shaping up to be almost as big as the first.
Motorola kicks off the second half of 2017 with its highest-end phone.
On July 25, Motorola is going to let the other shoe drop with the Moto Z2 Force after launching the Moto Z2 Play considerably early. The Moto Z2 Force is expected to pull double duty as the tough, shatterproof phone and the high-end mainstream flagship — that’s not easy. At the same time, we’re still waiting for more details on the mid-range resurrection of the Moto X brand with the Moto X4 — that could be at the same event, or it could require its own bespoke unveiling, we don’t know.
Samsung is gearing up to launch the much-anticipated Galaxy Note 8, presumably in the last week of August but at the latest the beginning of September. After about 10 months with the Note 5 as the latest Note model available following the final Note 7 recall, people are itching to get their hands on something new. Word of a Galaxy S8+-like experience with an even bigger display and dual cameras are good, but we can expect Samsung to show off something altogether new as well.
LG is going to try and make big splash at the IFA trade show with the LG V30. There’s a launch event scheduled for August 31, which of course could end up being just a week after the Note 8 is announced. The V30 leaks we have show a device that borrows a lot from the LG G6, including its tall screen, small bezels and more “traditional” design. That’s mildly disappointing to those who liked the quirks of the V10 and V20, but I think LG realizes it has to go a bit more mainstream if it wants any real number of people to buy a V-series phone.
Thought we were done there? Ha! Google still has to play its hand, and we expect it to do so in October once again. Details have started to leak about the new LG-made Pixel XL 2 (or whatever it will be branded), pointing to a really nice hardware upgrade. And that’s just half of it — we still need to learn about the successor to the smaller Pixel. It seems at this point that the third Google-branded device of the year, which was apparently being developed with HTC, has been shelved for now. Phew.
Google will be the last, but certainly not least, in 2017.
Then there are others still. We know Sony’s usually good for a phone launch (or three) at IFA as well, presumably further iterating on its low, mid and high-end phones from MWC earlier in the year. There’s a good shout that OnePlus could even do something else this year, considering it has released two phones in each of the past two years. Huawei is due another high-end Mate, presumably the Mate 10, by the end of the year also.
So yeah, how about that “slow” period? It’s going to be a pretty wild ride from the end of July through November in the world of Android. A few more thoughts on the week:
- Mixed bag of comments in my article about financing a phone somewhere other than a carrier. Yup, I know you can get a good deal from a carrier sometimes — but there’s value in giving your money directly to the manufacturer, too.
- Damn that Solar Red HTC U11 is beautiful.
- Everyone should be using two-factor authentication with their Google account. Yes, even you. And as a smart person who uses two-factor, you should take it upon yourself to get your friends and family on it as well.
- This week will mark three months since the Galaxy S8 and S8+ went on sale. I’ve hopped around to a lot of phones, but the GS8 is still really solid. I’ll be back on it tomorrow to wrap up some thoughts on how it’s aged since launch.
- RIP, Vertu. Very few people will miss you, really.
That’s it for now — have a great week, everyone!
-Andrew
The frantic swordfighting of ‘Nidhogg 2’ arrives on August 15th
If you’re a fan of in-person two-player games, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of Nidhogg. Its frenetic swordfighting is easy to pick up, difficult to master and oozing with Atari 2600-style visual charm. There’s only been so much you could do with its handful of levels and single-weapon gameplay, though, so it’s a good thing that a sequel is right around the corner. Messhof has revealed that Nidhogg 2 will reach the PS4, Mac and PC on August 15th, with PS4 pre-orders starting on July 18th. The title preserves the core mechanics — you’re still trying to slash through (or around) an opponent and make it to a screen on the far end of the map — but a lot has changed in the 3 years since the original.
The most obvious change, as you might have noticed, is the style. The studio decided to ‘upgrade’ to a 16-bit appearance for the sequel, so that means ’90s-like vivid colors and bitmapped graphics that let you customize your character. Also, you have more than your sword to fight with: bows and daggers help you throw curveballs into your rival’s strategy. There are ten arenas, to boot, so the game should stay fresh for that much longer. Nidhogg 2’s look is polarizing (some have complained about the shift from a serious tone to silly), but the expanded gameplay might overcome any artistic quibbles.
Source: PlayStation Blog
The best fireproof document safe
By Nick Guy
This post was done in partnership with The Sweethome, a buyer’s guide to the best homewares. When readers choose to buy The Sweethome’s independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read the full article here.
Everyone has crucial documents—birth certificates, passports, old photographs—that would be difficult or impossible to replace in the event of a disaster. For things you need easy access to, a fireproof document safe can make more sense than an off-site security deposit box. After subjecting five top-rated models to an actual trial by fire, we found First Alert safes are the best for most homes, and we specifically recommend the First Alert 2017F.
Who should get this
Document safes are meant to provide protection from fire, water, and to a degree, theft, without your having to keep anything off-site. They’re best for important documents—such as passports or birth certificates—or small items like hard drives or USB sticks.
To be clear, fireproof safes are not meant to be burglarproof, or to serve as impenetrable time capsules. If you have jewelry, precious metals, or anything of high value you don’t need frequent access to, consider a safe anchored to your floor, or a safe deposit box at a local bank. The fireproof document safes in this guide are also not gun safes, and should not be used as such.
How we picked and tested
The fire in progress. Video: Kimber Streams
For this guide, we weren’t looking for expensive professional installations or gun safes, but rather small, fireproof safes that fit under a desk or in a closet. This is the kind that’s heavy and secure but still ready to be lifted and moved if necessary. A document safe needs to be fireproof and watertight (so “flood proof,” too), with a locking mechanism that keeps opportunistic intruders out.
Most fireproof safes are tested and rated by the safety organization UL and the inspection firm Intertek, using the “ETL” mark. We spoke to John Drengenberg, consumer safety director at UL, about the organization’s testing procedures. He said UL tests to different ratings, depending on what kind of rating the manufacturer wants. Most household safes are rated to last 30 minutes at 1,550 °F, a standard based on modern firefighting response and how a fire typically moves through a house.
We surveyed about 200 Wirecutter readers to determine what they kept in a fireproof safe, or would plan to. Documents were the clear leader in demand at 97 percent, with digital media such as flash drives and CDs coming in second at 69 percent. A little less than half of the survey participants said they needed something suitable for jewelry, and 30 percent indicated that they wanted something for precious metals/coins and photographs, respectively. With digital media ranking so high in that survey, we required that our picks keep their contents below 125 °F, the failure threshold for digital media, according to UL.
Three major brands make most of the fireproof safes for home use: First Alert, Honeywell, and SentrySafe. We checked out every home document safe from all three companies, 35 in total. From there we narrowed the list, eliminating models that have been discontinued, were too expensive, or couldn’t fit an unfolded sheet of paper inside.
We whittled the list to five test models. We evaluated how well items fit inside, how easy the locks were to use, and how sturdy each safe seemed. Then it was time to burn. With the help of trained fire professionals, we built a 4-by-8-foot room out of plywood and two-by-fours, and installed drywall inside to radiate heat. Then we filled it with flammable couch cushions, a carpet, cardboard, and some wood, put the safes in, and lit it.
We filled each safe with the same contents: five printed photos in an envelope, a newspaper, a flash drive with various video files, and a DVD with a movie file burned to it. Within minutes, the fire was up to about 1,300 °F. We let it run its course for about half an hour before asking firefighters to put it out with a fire hose. When the safes were cool to the touch, we opened them to check out the aftermath. To learn more about our testing (and to see videos of us burning the safes), be sure to read our full guide.
Our pick
Photo: Nick Guy
The best fireproof document safe for most people is the First Alert 2017F, a smaller version of the now-discontinued 2030F that survived our tests and was our previous top pick. The two safes share the same construction and composition, but the 2017F has half the interior space. Though we haven’t yet fire-tested the 2017F, we’re confident in the results we’ve seen from First Alert safes in the past, and the company’s assurances that the 2017F is the same but smaller. The 2017F is also among the least expensive options of comparable size, and is deep enough to fit a fair number of documents.
In our active fire test, the 2030F performed just as we hoped. It kept all traces of water out, and the contents were unscathed. Neither the photos nor newspaper showed any signs of heat damage, and the contents of the flash drive and DVD were both accessible. We expect the same performance from the 2017F.
Both safes lock with a simple key and latch. We can’t vouch for how burglarproof the lock is, but it is secure enough to not pop open when you don’t want it to. Note that the locking mechanism, along with the entire exterior of the safe, was destroyed in our test fire. We had to pry the remnants of the safe open to get inside, because we had no chance of using the key (as was the case with all the safes we tested).
The 2017F has an internal capacity of 0.19 cubic feet, measuring 2.91 by 13.23 by 8.58 inches, which is large enough to hold sheets of paper without your having to fold them. It has a handle and weighs 19 pounds.
A bigger option for file folders
Photo: Nick Guy
The First Alert 2603DF is a larger option (with a 0.62-cubic-foot capacity) for anyone who prefers enough space to hang file folders but expects the same amount of fire and water protection. Although its design is very similar to that of the 2030F, this upgraded model also includes an easy-to-use keypad locking mechanism (with a manual-key backup).
On top of the chest is an electronic keypad, which you can use to enter a code between four and eight digits long. We like the keypad for quick access, though you’ll need the regular key if the AA batteries die and you don’t have replacements on hand.
Aside from the size difference and the keypad, the 2603DF performed just as well as its smaller counterpart. The materials we put inside survived our fire and water onslaught with no damage and remained readable, even though the safe itself was destroyed.
This guide may have been updated by The Sweethome. To see the current recommendation, please go here.
Note from The Sweethome: When readers choose to buy our independently chosen editorial picks, we may earn affiliate commissions that support our work.
Awesome tech you can’t buy yet: Put your drone and your toothbrush on autopilot
At any given moment, there are approximately a zillion different crowdfunding campaigns happening on the Web. Take a stroll through Kickstarter or Indiegogo and you’ll find no shortage of weird, useless, and downright stupid projects out there – alongside some real gems. We’ve cut through the Pebble clones and janky iPhone cases to round up the most unusual, ambitious, and exciting new crowdfunding projects out there this week. That said, keep in mind that any crowdfunding project — even the best intentioned — can fail, so do your homework before cutting a check for the gadget of your dreams.
Raspberry Shake 4D — compact seismograph
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The Raspberry Shake 4D is a “professional personal Earth monitoring device” that puts you in the shoes of a seismologist, allowing you to track the Earth’s vibrations and predict earthquakes a few minutes before they occur. Building upon the success of the original Raspberry Shake (which was a resounding success on Kickstarter about a year ago), the Raspberry Shake 4D makes use of four precision sensors to monitor seismic activity, allowing users to observe all vibrations happening in their area, big or small.
“Now it is possible to see double the range of vibrations across all dimensions (laterally and vertically) making the 4D the most powerful personal seismograph in existence,” Ángel Rodríguez, the designer of the device, claimed. But unlike full fledged seismograph machines, which generally cost thousands of dollars, the Raspberry Shake 4D costs just a few hundred on Kickstarter.
Airdog ADII — advanced autofollow drone
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Back in 2014, a little-known company called Airdog launched something that would transform the drone landscape forever: a quadcopter that automatically followed (and filmed) its subject, thereby eliminating the need for manual piloting. Sure, this is a standard feature on just about every card-carrying drone that’s released these days, but Airdog was arguably one of the first to take the idea and run with it. The only problem, however, was that as soon as Airdog’s kickstarter campaign gained a good deal of attention, big companies like DJI and Yuneec adapted the idea for their own products.
But Airdog’s creators didn’t let copycats deter them. They kept tweaking, iterating, and pushing their auto-follow technology forward. Now, the fruit of that labor, the ADII, is up for pre-order on Kickstarter, and it takes auto-follow to a whole new level.
With the ADII, you can customize the drone’s flight path, altitude, and shooting style before before you even start filming. That might not sound like much, but it allows you to set up the perfect shot and ensure that your drone wont hit any obstacles, without having to manually pilot the drone. Check out the Kickstarter vid for details — you won’t want to miss this one.
IllumiSoap — motion-activated soap dispenser night light
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Remember Illumibowl? That motion-activated night light that illuminates your toilet bowl when you wake up and stumble into the bathroom in the middle of the night? If not, you clearly don’t spend enough time browsing crowdfunding sites. Illumibowl is one of Kickstarter’s biggest success stories. The company behind the device mounted not one, but two successful crowdfunding campaigns, and even made an appearance on Shark Tank at one point. But the creators aren’t stopping there. This week, the company is back with yet a new gizmo.
Just as the admittedly uninspired name suggests, the Illumisoap is based on the same core idea, but instead of lighting up your toilet bowl when you walk in, it lights up your soap dispenser. The underling tech is almost exactly the same — it’s a set of multicolored LEDs triggered by a motion sensor. That way, if you should ever need to wash your hands after doing your business, you’ll never have trouble finding the soap. Sure, it’s not quite as innovative as the original, but its certainly a lot more interesting than your average night light.
Flex E-board — all-terrain electric longboard
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Electric longboards are an undeniably convenient way to get around the city. They’re just as quick as a bike or a scooter, but are also small enough to pick up and take on a bus or train when a longer journey is necessary. However, they also have one pretty significant drawback: they can’t handle rough terrain very well. Anything outside of smooth pavement usually means you have to pick up your board and hoof it. But what if there was a board that could handle dirt, gravel, and everything in between?
That’s precisely the idea behind Flex E-board’s new Rough Stuff longboard. Just like every other electric skate in the game, it’s equipped with a set of powerful hub motors and some lithium ion batteries to keep them spinning — but it’s also got a few other tricks up its sleeve that make it better for rough terrain.
First, a flexible deck helps absorb bumps and other shocks. Second is the inclusion of a set of interchangeable wheels. If you know you’re going to hit some less-than-ideal roads on your way, just slap on the soft 85A convex wheels and you’ll be able to charge over gravel roads.
Amabrush — automatic toothbrush
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Tired of all the squeezing, scrubbing, spitting, rinsing, gargling, and flossing required to keep your pearly whites clean? For decades now, your only recourse from this mildly laborious task has been the electric toothbrush. But while these automatically oscillating tooth scrubbers are definitely a step in the right direction, they still don’t remove all the tediousness and time consumption from the act of brushing your teeth. What if there was a way to get the same job done, achieve the same level of cleanliness, and do it in a fraction of the time?
Enter the Amabrush, the first fully automatic toothbrush that (allegedly) finishes the job in just 10 seconds, giving you more time to do … well, anything else. Here’s how it works. The device itself is essentially a big, bristly mouthpiece. You start by shoving it in your mouth and switching it on, at which point it will oscillate at a high frequency to scrub your pearly whites. While this happens, microchannels built into the mouthpiece deliver toothpaste directly to where its needed. The whole process allegedly takes just 10 seconds, and cleans your teeth just as thoroughly as normal brushing.
Awesome tech you can’t buy yet: Put your drone and your toothbrush on autopilot
At any given moment, there are approximately a zillion different crowdfunding campaigns happening on the Web. Take a stroll through Kickstarter or Indiegogo and you’ll find no shortage of weird, useless, and downright stupid projects out there – alongside some real gems. We’ve cut through the Pebble clones and janky iPhone cases to round up the most unusual, ambitious, and exciting new crowdfunding projects out there this week. That said, keep in mind that any crowdfunding project — even the best intentioned — can fail, so do your homework before cutting a check for the gadget of your dreams.
Raspberry Shake 4D — compact seismograph
Please enable Javascript to watch this video
The Raspberry Shake 4D is a “professional personal Earth monitoring device” that puts you in the shoes of a seismologist, allowing you to track the Earth’s vibrations and predict earthquakes a few minutes before they occur. Building upon the success of the original Raspberry Shake (which was a resounding success on Kickstarter about a year ago), the Raspberry Shake 4D makes use of four precision sensors to monitor seismic activity, allowing users to observe all vibrations happening in their area, big or small.
“Now it is possible to see double the range of vibrations across all dimensions (laterally and vertically) making the 4D the most powerful personal seismograph in existence,” Ángel Rodríguez, the designer of the device, claimed. But unlike full fledged seismograph machines, which generally cost thousands of dollars, the Raspberry Shake 4D costs just a few hundred on Kickstarter.
Airdog ADII — advanced autofollow drone
Please enable Javascript to watch this video
Back in 2014, a little-known company called Airdog launched something that would transform the drone landscape forever: a quadcopter that automatically followed (and filmed) its subject, thereby eliminating the need for manual piloting. Sure, this is a standard feature on just about every card-carrying drone that’s released these days, but Airdog was arguably one of the first to take the idea and run with it. The only problem, however, was that as soon as Airdog’s kickstarter campaign gained a good deal of attention, big companies like DJI and Yuneec adapted the idea for their own products.
But Airdog’s creators didn’t let copycats deter them. They kept tweaking, iterating, and pushing their auto-follow technology forward. Now, the fruit of that labor, the ADII, is up for pre-order on Kickstarter, and it takes auto-follow to a whole new level.
With the ADII, you can customize the drone’s flight path, altitude, and shooting style before before you even start filming. That might not sound like much, but it allows you to set up the perfect shot and ensure that your drone wont hit any obstacles, without having to manually pilot the drone. Check out the Kickstarter vid for details — you won’t want to miss this one.
IllumiSoap — motion-activated soap dispenser night light
Please enable Javascript to watch this video
Remember Illumibowl? That motion-activated night light that illuminates your toilet bowl when you wake up and stumble into the bathroom in the middle of the night? If not, you clearly don’t spend enough time browsing crowdfunding sites. Illumibowl is one of Kickstarter’s biggest success stories. The company behind the device mounted not one, but two successful crowdfunding campaigns, and even made an appearance on Shark Tank at one point. But the creators aren’t stopping there. This week, the company is back with yet a new gizmo.
Just as the admittedly uninspired name suggests, the Illumisoap is based on the same core idea, but instead of lighting up your toilet bowl when you walk in, it lights up your soap dispenser. The underling tech is almost exactly the same — it’s a set of multicolored LEDs triggered by a motion sensor. That way, if you should ever need to wash your hands after doing your business, you’ll never have trouble finding the soap. Sure, it’s not quite as innovative as the original, but its certainly a lot more interesting than your average night light.
Flex E-board — all-terrain electric longboard
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Electric longboards are an undeniably convenient way to get around the city. They’re just as quick as a bike or a scooter, but are also small enough to pick up and take on a bus or train when a longer journey is necessary. However, they also have one pretty significant drawback: they can’t handle rough terrain very well. Anything outside of smooth pavement usually means you have to pick up your board and hoof it. But what if there was a board that could handle dirt, gravel, and everything in between?
That’s precisely the idea behind Flex E-board’s new Rough Stuff longboard. Just like every other electric skate in the game, it’s equipped with a set of powerful hub motors and some lithium ion batteries to keep them spinning — but it’s also got a few other tricks up its sleeve that make it better for rough terrain.
First, a flexible deck helps absorb bumps and other shocks. Second is the inclusion of a set of interchangeable wheels. If you know you’re going to hit some less-than-ideal roads on your way, just slap on the soft 85A convex wheels and you’ll be able to charge over gravel roads.
Amabrush — automatic toothbrush
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Tired of all the squeezing, scrubbing, spitting, rinsing, gargling, and flossing required to keep your pearly whites clean? For decades now, your only recourse from this mildly laborious task has been the electric toothbrush. But while these automatically oscillating tooth scrubbers are definitely a step in the right direction, they still don’t remove all the tediousness and time consumption from the act of brushing your teeth. What if there was a way to get the same job done, achieve the same level of cleanliness, and do it in a fraction of the time?
Enter the Amabrush, the first fully automatic toothbrush that (allegedly) finishes the job in just 10 seconds, giving you more time to do … well, anything else. Here’s how it works. The device itself is essentially a big, bristly mouthpiece. You start by shoving it in your mouth and switching it on, at which point it will oscillate at a high frequency to scrub your pearly whites. While this happens, microchannels built into the mouthpiece deliver toothpaste directly to where its needed. The whole process allegedly takes just 10 seconds, and cleans your teeth just as thoroughly as normal brushing.
Awesome tech you can’t buy yet: Put your drone and your toothbrush on autopilot
At any given moment, there are approximately a zillion different crowdfunding campaigns happening on the Web. Take a stroll through Kickstarter or Indiegogo and you’ll find no shortage of weird, useless, and downright stupid projects out there – alongside some real gems. We’ve cut through the Pebble clones and janky iPhone cases to round up the most unusual, ambitious, and exciting new crowdfunding projects out there this week. That said, keep in mind that any crowdfunding project — even the best intentioned — can fail, so do your homework before cutting a check for the gadget of your dreams.
Raspberry Shake 4D — compact seismograph
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The Raspberry Shake 4D is a “professional personal Earth monitoring device” that puts you in the shoes of a seismologist, allowing you to track the Earth’s vibrations and predict earthquakes a few minutes before they occur. Building upon the success of the original Raspberry Shake (which was a resounding success on Kickstarter about a year ago), the Raspberry Shake 4D makes use of four precision sensors to monitor seismic activity, allowing users to observe all vibrations happening in their area, big or small.
“Now it is possible to see double the range of vibrations across all dimensions (laterally and vertically) making the 4D the most powerful personal seismograph in existence,” Ángel Rodríguez, the designer of the device, claimed. But unlike full fledged seismograph machines, which generally cost thousands of dollars, the Raspberry Shake 4D costs just a few hundred on Kickstarter.
Airdog ADII — advanced autofollow drone
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Back in 2014, a little-known company called Airdog launched something that would transform the drone landscape forever: a quadcopter that automatically followed (and filmed) its subject, thereby eliminating the need for manual piloting. Sure, this is a standard feature on just about every card-carrying drone that’s released these days, but Airdog was arguably one of the first to take the idea and run with it. The only problem, however, was that as soon as Airdog’s kickstarter campaign gained a good deal of attention, big companies like DJI and Yuneec adapted the idea for their own products.
But Airdog’s creators didn’t let copycats deter them. They kept tweaking, iterating, and pushing their auto-follow technology forward. Now, the fruit of that labor, the ADII, is up for pre-order on Kickstarter, and it takes auto-follow to a whole new level.
With the ADII, you can customize the drone’s flight path, altitude, and shooting style before before you even start filming. That might not sound like much, but it allows you to set up the perfect shot and ensure that your drone wont hit any obstacles, without having to manually pilot the drone. Check out the Kickstarter vid for details — you won’t want to miss this one.
IllumiSoap — motion-activated soap dispenser night light
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Remember Illumibowl? That motion-activated night light that illuminates your toilet bowl when you wake up and stumble into the bathroom in the middle of the night? If not, you clearly don’t spend enough time browsing crowdfunding sites. Illumibowl is one of Kickstarter’s biggest success stories. The company behind the device mounted not one, but two successful crowdfunding campaigns, and even made an appearance on Shark Tank at one point. But the creators aren’t stopping there. This week, the company is back with yet a new gizmo.
Just as the admittedly uninspired name suggests, the Illumisoap is based on the same core idea, but instead of lighting up your toilet bowl when you walk in, it lights up your soap dispenser. The underling tech is almost exactly the same — it’s a set of multicolored LEDs triggered by a motion sensor. That way, if you should ever need to wash your hands after doing your business, you’ll never have trouble finding the soap. Sure, it’s not quite as innovative as the original, but its certainly a lot more interesting than your average night light.
Flex E-board — all-terrain electric longboard
Please enable Javascript to watch this video
Electric longboards are an undeniably convenient way to get around the city. They’re just as quick as a bike or a scooter, but are also small enough to pick up and take on a bus or train when a longer journey is necessary. However, they also have one pretty significant drawback: they can’t handle rough terrain very well. Anything outside of smooth pavement usually means you have to pick up your board and hoof it. But what if there was a board that could handle dirt, gravel, and everything in between?
That’s precisely the idea behind Flex E-board’s new Rough Stuff longboard. Just like every other electric skate in the game, it’s equipped with a set of powerful hub motors and some lithium ion batteries to keep them spinning — but it’s also got a few other tricks up its sleeve that make it better for rough terrain.
First, a flexible deck helps absorb bumps and other shocks. Second is the inclusion of a set of interchangeable wheels. If you know you’re going to hit some less-than-ideal roads on your way, just slap on the soft 85A convex wheels and you’ll be able to charge over gravel roads.
Amabrush — automatic toothbrush
Please enable Javascript to watch this video
Tired of all the squeezing, scrubbing, spitting, rinsing, gargling, and flossing required to keep your pearly whites clean? For decades now, your only recourse from this mildly laborious task has been the electric toothbrush. But while these automatically oscillating tooth scrubbers are definitely a step in the right direction, they still don’t remove all the tediousness and time consumption from the act of brushing your teeth. What if there was a way to get the same job done, achieve the same level of cleanliness, and do it in a fraction of the time?
Enter the Amabrush, the first fully automatic toothbrush that (allegedly) finishes the job in just 10 seconds, giving you more time to do … well, anything else. Here’s how it works. The device itself is essentially a big, bristly mouthpiece. You start by shoving it in your mouth and switching it on, at which point it will oscillate at a high frequency to scrub your pearly whites. While this happens, microchannels built into the mouthpiece deliver toothpaste directly to where its needed. The whole process allegedly takes just 10 seconds, and cleans your teeth just as thoroughly as normal brushing.
AIVAnet 