Tag Archives: CrowdSourced

The Only Giant Stash That Won’t Get You Arrested

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Giant Stash Pillow

Designer Ryan Christensen has a thing for coming up with unusual art, and the Giant Stash pillowcase is an epitome of his bizarre style. As the name implies, it’s essentially a bag of ganja of epic proportions that’ll fit most pillows snugly. It was personal project at first that he brought to Kickstarter after seeing people’s positive reactions towards it.

Awhile back I decided to make a pillowcase that looked like a plus size zippy full of cannabis. Days later I had several varieties. After getting huge smiles and great reactions from people, I realized how much fun they were to have around, so I decided to keep working on them.

Giant Stash Pillow1

The Giant Stash pillowcase is currently up for funding on Kickstarter, where a pledge of $30 will get you one of your very own.

Talk to Strangers, Meet New People, and Get Social with Sneaky Cards

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Sneaky isn’t your ordinary card game. While most will pit you against friends, family, and acquaintances, Sneaky will challenge you to interact with others outside of your usual circle instead.

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It’s essentially a stack of dares that encourages you to be sneaky as you accomplish the objective printed on it. It’s described as a card game about “creating fun and creative social interactions, breaking up the tedium of everyday life.” From the looks of it, Sneaky can do just about that – and more.

The main goal of the game is to get rid of all your cards by following each cards own rule set. The game works best in common social environments. Places like malls, school campuses, offices, conferences, camps, youth groups, parties, and other public places. In most situations there is a player who is playing the game and a non-player who is not. With the player interacting in some way with the non-player.

Sneaky was created by 16-year-old Harry Lee back in 2009, with the help of hundreds of volunteers who helped create ideas for the deck.

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The best part? You can just download Sneaky Cards and print them at home to begin the fun. You can also contribute your own ideas to the project over on Reddit.

[via Boing Boing via The Awesomer via Laughing Squid]

Mover & Shaker Pens: Sturdy, Machined, and Nearly-Silent Click Pens

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Mover and the Shaker

If you’re on a search to find a click pen that won’t fail you when you need to write some stuff down on the go or in a rush, then the Mover and the Shaker pens might just be what you’re looking for. Designed and made by Tactile Turn, these custom-machined pens have a body made from 7075 Aluminum, while the clips are 301 Spring Steel.

Mover and the Shaker1

VIA [ Cool Material ]

 

Clip It, Protect It: ReelKlip Smartphone Protection System

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Reel Klip

People drop their phones all the time. Whether it breaks or not depends on the protective case (or lack thereof) and the build of the phone itself. It also depends on whether or not the user is using a smartphone protection system, like ReelKlip. Most people don’t bother because they can be bulky and a pain to use, but ReelKlip is neither of the two.

It’s a discrete system that basically tethers your phone to where the clip is attached, so it won’t ever reach the ground if you drop it or fall out of your pocket inadvertently when you’re on the go.

Reel Klip1

ReelKlip is tough and durable, as it’s constructed from polycarbonate plastic, kevlar thread, and polyurethane rubber. It’s also extremely light at a mere 1 oz. ReelKlip is up for funding on Kickstarter, where a minimum pledge of $17 will get you one of your very own.

All Dock Universal Charger For Your Smartphones and Tablets

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All Dock

 

Gadgets have become nearly permanent fixtures in people’s lives these days. Without their phones, music players, or tablets, some people feel incomplete, ill at ease, or inconvenienced, and it makes sense, considering how these devices are used. It’s fine and dandy if you’ve got a few dozen outlets at home, but if you’ve only got a limited number of them (like most people do), then keeping these gadgets powered up can become quite a hassle.

One solution is the All Dock. It’s a charging dock for multiple devices so the number of chargers you’ll need for multiple gadgets drops down to one. It’s compatibility with gadgets from multiple manufacturers, including Apple, Android, Samsung, Sony, HTC, Kindle, Nokia, and Huawei, is a definite plus.

The All Dock boasts of a 2400mA per USB exit, so your phone will be charged up to 80% in less than sixty minutes. In addition to the slots, the dock also comes with active USB hubs.

The All-Dock will be compatible with the most common standard connectors like Lightning, 30-pin, micro-USB, etc. which can all be attached to the 4x or 6xUSB hub.

The All Dock is currently up for funding on Kickstarter, where a minimum pledge of $59 will get you one of your very own.

If You Like It, Then You Better Put a Smarty Ring On It

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Smarty Ring

If smart watches are too bulky for your taste, then how about a smart ring? That’s what the folks behind the aptly-named Smarty Ring are working with. Currently in development, the ring connects via Bluetooth to your iOS or Android smartphone. Alerts for new messages, calls, new email messages, and the like will be flashed on the ring’s display. For social media addicts, updates from Facebook, Twitter, Hangout, and Skype can also be displayed.

Aside from connectivity, it allows users to track the location of their device (if it goes missing) and control it remotely. The Smarty Ring raised about $300,000 on Indiegogo last December, with delivery slated for April 2014. If you missed out on the campaign, then you can still pre-order the ring for $175.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Werd ]

thingCHARGER Lets You Literally Pile On the Chargers

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Thingcharger

Running out of outlets to plug in your chargers for all of your devices? Then you might want to check the thingCharger out. It’s a portable outlet-slash-charger of sorts that lets you still use an outlet while you’re charging your device. The cool thing is that it’s stackable, so you can charge one, two, three or more devices in a single outlet and still be able to use that outlet for something else.

The thingCharger comes with interchangeable tips that are stored at its back, so you can swap between adapters for Apple, Samsung, HTC, Nokia, or Sony in a jiffy. It eliminates the wires that most chargers come with and is described as “green by design” since it doesn’t consume any power when it’s not actually in use.

The thingCharger is currently up for funding on Indiegogo, where a minimum contribution of $29 will get you one of your very own.

VIA [ Werd ]

 

Foldio is the First Foldable Studio for Smartphones

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Foldio

Most smartphones are equipped with shooters that rival digital cameras. In fact, some phones capture images that are better than those captured using digital cameras, giving rise to something called Phoneography. Studios are built for standalone cameras, so isn’t it high time for smartphone camera subjects to have their own studios, too?

Orange Monkie seems to agree with this, which is why they came up with Foldio. It’s dubbed as the “first foldable studio for smartphones” and its creators boast that users will be able to take studio-quality pictures with the ultra-portable studio.

Foldio is easy to assemble, thanks to magnets holding various parts in place. The embedded LED lights provide ample lighting, while the background sheet provides a flawless backdrop for your images.

Foldio is currently up for funding on Kickstarter, where a minimum pledge of $34 will get you one of your very own.

Space Monkey Online Storage Service: Crowdsourced Cloud

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If you have even just one important digital file, you owe it to yourself and that intangible bundle of electricity that you hold dear to sign up for a cloud file storage service. Many of them have entry level services that offer a few gigabytes of storage for free. Of course they’ll happily sell you more space if you need to back up more data. But a small startup called Space Monkey wants you to trust in other users instead.

space monkey cloud storage

Space Monkey is a backup service that will offer 1TB of both local and online storage for $10 (USD) per month. The local storage is straightforward – you will simply use a complementary app to back up your files to the Space Monkey computer (pictured above), as if you were using an external drive. The online storage is where Space Monkey gets eccentric. Instead of setting up expensive and complicated datacenters, all Space Monkey subscribers act as each other’s datacenters. Bits of your data are encrypted and scattered among the Space Monkey computers of other subscribers, and vice versa.

It’s like the reverse of Bittorrent. In theory, the more subscribers that join Space Monkey, the more collective storage you all have and the more secure your data will be. And because they don’t have to setup datacenters, that also means less expenses and maintenance on the part of Space Monkey. Clever eh?

Is it just me or does the name Space Monkey just not fit into the product? They should’ve called it Data Offcenter. A pledge of at least $119 on Kickstarter lets you sign up for a 1 year 1TB subscription with Space Monkey.

If you’re not that familiar with online storage I highly recommend you shop around first. I can see what Space Monkey is getting at but there are dependable and affordable cloud services out there like CrashPlan or Backblaze. Or as I said earlier, try a free service first like the ones offered by Dropbox and Google to see if it’s good enough for you.

Walmart Considers Crowdsourced Delivery: People of Walmart Postal Service

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There are clearly some executives at Walmart who have never actually ventured into one of their stores to see some of the unusual customers who frequent the world’s biggest retailer. While the vast majority of people in Walmart stores are reasonably normal, but there are a select few that nobody wants to see… Ever. That isn’t stopping Walmart from considering an interesting way to get online orders to people more quickly and at a lower price.

wm customer

Walmart executives are reportedly considering a crowdsourced delivery service. This delivery service would allow Walmart customers to pick up other people’s packages and deliver them to the people on their way home. Apparently, the idea is that Walmart would offer the customer delivering the package a discount on their purchase for doing so.

I can only imagine one of the many People of Walmart turning up at your door with your online order in hand – if they don’t steal it first. Walmart executives say that the crowdsourced shipping service is feasible and could turn up in the next few years. I think I’ll pass.

[via Reuters]