Alright, so every Thursday I will be browsing Kickstarter.com to highlight three to five projects I feel should be looked into. By posting it here, I hope more Dollars members can become aware of such projects and then spread the word about them.

For those who don't know, Kickstarter is a crowdfunding organization where individuals can pledge money toward a project. Money is only taken if the project reaches its goal; if a project does not reach its financial goal, then the donation isn't made. That means that crowdfunding projects are pretty much all-or-nothing. The minimum pledge amount is usually between one and five dollars, but you have the option to donate as much as you like.

Highlighted Kickstarter Projects - Thu, April 25, 2013

1) Glowing Plants: Natural Lighting with No Electricity

Started by: Antony Evans in San Francisco, CA

Summary: Using synthetic biology, changing the pigmentation of plants to make them phosphorescent. Glowing plants could replace traditional streetlights and curb electricity-related pollution.

Amount Pledged/Total: $58,190/$65,000 (89.5%)
Days Remaining: 42
Amount Remaining: $6,810; or $163 per day.

2) Windenhol: A New Wind Power Concept

Started by: Steven Halverson of Berkeley, CA

Summary: This is a revolutionary new design for a portable wind-powered electrical generator.

Amount Pledged/Total: $1,477/$63,600 (2.3%)
Days Remaining: 37
Amount Remaining: $62,123; or $1,679 per day.

3) Hydroponic Giant Pumpkin

Started by: Orin of Richmond, VA

Summary: This Kickstarter Project's goal is to grow a 2,000 lb pumpkin, larger than any on record. If it works, the seeds will be used to grow even more "legendary super pumpkins."

Amount Pledged/Total: $115/1,000 (11.5%)
Days Remaining: 26
Amount Remaining: $885; or $35 per day.

4) Chicago Community Greenhouse

Started by: Growing Home, Inc. of Chicago, IL

Summary: This project will help pay for an additional greenhouse in Chicago's Englewood community. It will provide organic produce, as well as job training for local residents.

Amount Pledged/Total: $8,284/$20,000 (41.4%)
Days Remaining: 21
Amount Remaining: $11,716; or $560 per day.

5) Brick City Farm: St. Louis

Started by: Christopher Shearman of St. Louis, MO

Summary: This project will pay for the construction of an urban farm in South St. Louis. Money produced by the selling of this farm's produce will then go back into the St. Louis community.

Amount Pledged/Total: $2,942/$10,000 (29.4%)
Days Remaining: 20
Amount Remaining: $7,058; or $353 per day.

>>1
Btw this is not "News", this should be in either the -
"Suggestions Board" http://dollars-bbs.org/suggestions/
or the -
"Missions Board" http://dollars-bbs.org/missions/

I think it belongs here perfectly.

Love the Glowing Plant Project replacing street light with glowing trees is just so.. awesome !

More trees = More Oxygen.
Less electric lights = Less Pollution being released to the atmosphere.

A big step toward world "De-Pollution".

Go for it mk.

>>3

news
/n(y)o͞oz/
Noun
Newly received or noteworthy information, esp. about recent or important events.
A broadcast or published report of news.

I explained what Kickstarter is; I did not tell people they had to pledge to a particular cause. Not a mission. Also, I don't know how the hell it would end up in suggestions.
--------------------------------------------------
>>5 I do think it's an interesting idea. My only gripe is that the brightness isn't intense enough. Pic Related

They work well as markers and aesthetic pieces. They'll still need to be supplemented with LED lights in the general vicinity.

I am perfectly aware what "new" means, so don't go trying to look smarter by quouting.

why it would fit in suggestions beacuse you're suggesting it is a good idea to pledge from one of them two courses.

Lastly just about everyone knows what Kickstarter is, heck only "one" game has been successfully funded by kickstarter and that is "Elite Dangerous" if anything that would be newsworthy.

>>9 Stop posting. If you can't figure out that this is only meant to be an informational thread then I really can't help you. Second, the suggestions board is ONLY for site-related topics; you have absolutely no idea what you're saying at this point.

For everyone else, please see >>2 about this week's Kickstarter highlights.

>>9 Leave off MK, Kaisuke. This is a perfectly valid thread topic for news and you are the only one with a problem. >>1 I don't have much money but, if I see something really good that you post ill be sure to donate!

>>7 Well, I don't think that they have an actual glowing plant yet so until then we can't know for sure, but if a tree could give almost as much light (around 60%-100%) as a street lamp then I think this ideia would change alot of things.

Also less electric lights = More money, and this could help the current economic crisis too.

>>12 I've seen different images circulating the net of phosphorescent/bioluminescent algae being used as lamps, so they have some working models currently. It's just a matter of seeing what plants will accept the gene, then transplanting said vegetation into urban environments.

And while saying it could help the economic crisis is something of a stretch, it still has a pretty recent rate of return over 10-20 years, if nothing else.

>>13 They are probably trying to make the plants has bright as they can.

10-20 years ?
So you can't feed them water combined with the gene ? Does the seed of the plant need to be mutated for the plant to glow ?

If so then this is a realy slow process or maybe a key to open more doors, with this fast growth will be a need and who knows, maybe some other people will develope some kind of substance to enable plants to grow faster.

>>14 Mutations have to start either at seed formation or be introduced in a manner similar to stem cells in humans. Essentially what you want is for cell division to carry what I'm guessing is an amino acid chain. And as with all genetic projects it's expensive; there's a reason the project managers needed sixty-three grand to make this have a shot at working.

Come to think of it, I'm surprised Monsanto and Dow Chemical aren't peddling a project like this. These are the kind of companies that will pay upwards of three billion dollars just to secure rights to a gene. That they aren't doing something like this here is out of character for them.

I heard about a city they are constructing to be completely re-usable in Saudi Arabia. Apparently there the pathways have a sort of solar panel like substance that absorbs light and shades the path during the day but then reverses and provides light at nightime. I guess its just between that and the trees to see which can provide cost efficiant, emission free lighting first.

>>15 The people that are making the project said that they didn't want to secure any rights to their genes, it's in the Kickstarter video.

>>16 The lights might be free but I think they still pollute.

>>17 Then my point stands. Why aren't Monsanto and Dow trying to secure rights to this idea? It would be so easy, after all.

>>18 Hmmm... Maybe because of business respect or honor, a matter of waiting to see what the future holds

Bull. Fucking. Shit. Monsanto in particular has a track record of suing the everloving shit out of anyone who so much as accidentally uses their product without paying top dollar.

>>20 Don't people need authorization to secure rights of a gene from the people that actually created it ?

Maybe the Glowing Plants team denied them to do so, also the gene is open source, anyone can see it in the "Genome Compiler" cloud.

>>21 Well I can't say I know everything there is to know about it, but there are some things to consider:

- Genetic Engineering is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency. However, both of these agencies are heavily staffed by former employees of companies like Dow Chemical and Monsanto. This is the reason lobbying efforts always seem to favor said companies. (Source: The Amazing Revolving Door - Richard Murray)

- Even if a genetic structure is considered "open source," it still has to be licensed for commercial use; signed and sealed by the creators themselves. And this is mainly for the protection of the creator. Because when the documents get submitted to the PTO, it doesn't matter whose name is on it, but whoever's name is on it gets all of the distribution rights. (Source: Patenting Agriculture - John Barton, Peter Berger)

Companies like Monsanto and Dow have used this loophole to make minor alterations to a gene, patent it, and then sue every individual who came before them in making it. It's no different than Thomas Edison stealing many of Nikola Tesla's ideas in the last century and then attempting to discredit him.

It's terrible and the companies that are doing it are scum. Additionally, they have the capacity to just keep doing it indiscriminately. What concerns me about this project in particular is its potential to be quickly monopolized.

Bumping this back up. As a reminder, highlights for the week of April 25 are in post >>2 . The post for this week's highlights will be this Thursday, May 2nd.

Bumps for MKOLLER

Tomorrow I shall be selecting another several projects to highlight. Until then, remember that >>2 displays the previous week's.

The following are Kickstarter Highlights for 5/2/2013:

1) The Mwezi Light - Solar Powered Illumination

Started By: Mike Sherry (United Kingdom)

Summary: "The Mwezi light, a solar lamp with a difference - made in Africa for Africa. Mwezi is a problem solving product that will have a life enhancing impact on the poor and vulnerable, designed in the UK ,and then in the future assembled in Africa to create jobs and save lives by replacing kerosene lamps. A unique approach - a great product that solves a problem and will create jobs in Africa at the same time with a scalable and sustainable solution."

Amount Pledged/Total: 622/25,000 GBP (2.49%)
Days Remaining: 29
Amount Remaining: 24,378 GBP; or 841 GBP per day.

2) Bench Model Plastic Injection Machine

Started By: LNS Technologies (Vacaville, CA)

Summary: LNS Technologies is a manufacturer of Plastic Molding Machines. These devices can use plastic pellets or other, less conventional sources (such as recycled water bottles). The manufacturing firm would like to produce larger scale devices for home and other commercial use. The model they are proposing through Kickstarter would have 3x the volume capacity, allowing for the production of much larger items.

Amount Pledged/Total: $3,003/10,000 (30.03%)
Days Remaining: 44
Amount Remaining: $6,997; or $160 per day.

3) EpicRewind

Started By: SkyForge Interactive, LLC (Atlanta, GA)

Summary: Development of a Program which stores video footage in System RAM during a videogame session. The footage can then be processed and saved to your hard disk at the press of a key.

Amount Pledged/Total: $811/1,000 (81.1%)
Days Remaining: 16
Amount Remaining: $189; or $12 per day.

Kickstarter Highlights for the week of 4/25/2013: >>2

3) would take a hell of a lot of ram..

>>27 Yeah, but most boards are expandable to 32, 64 or 256 now. Mine's only expandable to 8 but it's two years old. I never use the six I have though. *shrug*

Normal board have two RAM slots, and the cheapes DDR 8GB RAM costs 59€ and I'm not gonna pay for 2 of those (118€) just to have 16GB to record video games, what happens to the 16GB while I'm not playing games, I'd probably just use 4GB 'o RAM 12GB would be left to dust, so no I do not like the project.

Did you copy the summaries from kickstarter or did you wrote them yourself ?

I paraphrased most of them. Also, some laptop boards (and most desktop boards) have four slots. So...yeah...

Well I'm not gonna buy 4 RAM cards and they just need that money to buy RAM and to pay up their monthly fees because a project like that on is fairly easy to write, it wouldn't record on RAM but direcly to the HDD, the only thing that would be hard to code would be the codec for the video format if they plan on making a new one.

The first summary says "Africa" 4 times and says "create jobs" 2 times, the people who wrote that on Kickstarter was probably from Africa (no racism)

Not any interesting project this week for me.

>>31 To be honest, all of the really good projects were already at more than 100% funding, so I didn't want to highlight them (I prefer to post ones that have yet to hit 100% at the time of posting, but have the potential to hit 100%). This week just happened to not have a lot to fill that criteria.

My hope is that this Thursday I can pull up some real gems.

bump

>>32 Good luck, Kickstarter should make a system for bitcoin, that would help me lots on donating.

It costs double to donate in Australia so yeah... nah.

The following are Kickstarter Highlights for 5/9/2013:

1) Battery Powered Satellite Internet; Codename "BRCK"

Started By: Ushahidi (Nairobi, Kenya)

Summary: Essentially, this device acts as a "backup generator" for the internet itself, allowing you to connect to the net in remote locations (such as rural villages in the African backcountry). This project has actually recieved international coverage by both the BBC and MIT Technology Review. Personally, I'd love to see it funded because of its versatility.

Amount Pledged/Total: $61,009/$125,000 (48.8%)
Days Remaining: 26
Amount Remaining: $63,991; or $2,462 per day.

2) Orcus Underwater Vehicle

Started By: Colin Katagiri, University of Washington (Seattle Campus)

Summary: The Underwater Robotics Team of WashU is seeking one thousand dollars to develop and fund an underwater rover for an engineering competition. I know many of you are still in high school but I'd like to bring up a personal point here. When you get into university, you have the option to join a Society. I was a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, for example, and we did a Steel Bridge design competition similar to this one. These projects benefit the institution by providing an extracurricular opportunity, benefit the students by providing hands on mechanical experience, and benefit governments and corporations by introducing new technical ideas. It's a win-win situation all around, and that's why I feel this needs to be backed.

Amount Pledged/Total: $364/$1000 (36.4%)
Days Remaining: 27
Amount Remaining: $636; or $24 per day.

3) Niles Tech Medical App

Started By: Niles Tech Medical Group (Charlottesville, VA)

Summary: The developers of this application are essentially trying to make the most advanced medical sofware platform on the planet. The app shall be able to store a patient's complete medical datasheet, predict triends in said data, maintain an efficient pharmaceutical schedule, log test results, and present all of this information in a clear, concise manner.

This is important because of, well, Obamacare actually. What many of you may have noticed is that medical professionals are ditching paper recording and moving to local disk systems and cloud based systems. However, as it is now, it is WOEFULLY inefficient. In the long run, a software like this can speed up the transition process by several years, and save both the government and the medical industry hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Amount Pledged/Total: $30/$60,000 (0.05%)
Days Remaining: 41
Amount Remaining: $59,970; or $1,463 per day.

4) Carbon Fiber Longboards (Fuck Yes)

Started By: Ronnie & Brian Shand (Jupiter, FL)

Summary: Exactly what it says on the tin. These guys want to mass produce custom longboards out of Carbon Fiber (also known as Carbon Nanotubing). For the record, CF is one of the strongest materials in its weight class. It's what they make formula one cars out of, it's what they make body panels for supercars out of, and by God, if they don't make longboards out of it, it will be a damn shame!

Amount Pledged/Total: $5,120/$25,000 (20.5%)
Days Remaining: 20
Amount Remaining: $19,880; or $994 per day.

5) Urban LED Concrete Lamps

Started By: Rafael Concepcion (Miami, FL)

Summary: Again, exactly what it says on the tin. These Multicolored LED cylinders are encased in Concrete statues with a modernist feel. They'll last 22.8 years and are a good alternative if the whole "Glowing Plants" thing doesn't work out (see Post >>2 if you're unsure what I'm referring to). Personally, I love the design. It has this Matrix feel to it.

Amount Pledged/Total: $401/$9800 (4.1%)
Days Remaining: 27
Amount Remaining: $9,399; or $349 per day.

Kickstarter Highlights for the week of 5/2/2013: >>26

1) This one looks awesome, totaly gonna donate it.
2) Gonna ask some people if they want to donate.
3) I have some friends that work in the Medical Department, they might donate this one.
4) So this is basicly skate board that doesn't break ?
5) Nah, don't like.

>>38 It's basically a skateboard that is incredibly light...and won't break. And the concrete lamps look fucking awesome if you ask me. But they probably won't fund. Sucks.

>>39 Yeah they need 20K to get it and they only have 17 days to go, carbon fiber is cheap but it would still be more expensive than normal boards.

>>40 The more interest CF gets the more it'll be researched into, and hopefully the more the price will drop. Overall, I'd like more than anything to see all production cars using CF in some way by 2020, instead of the shitty plastics they currently use.

The following are highlighted Kickstarter Projects for the week of 5/16/2013:

1) Vololights: Enhanced Motorcycle Lighting

Started By: Vectolabs, LLC (Oceanside, CA)

Summary: In short, this is a new type of Motorcycle rearward lighting with includes an accelerometer and variable brightness software built in. It increases the versatility of the rear lighting, thus increasing safety.

Amount Pledged/Total: $10,274/$50,000 (20.5%)
Days Remaining: 26
Amount Remaining: $39,726; or $1528 per day.

2) VACHEN Brand Android Smarwatch

Started By: Won Rhee (San Ramon, CA)

Summary: Independent Firm is starting research into the production of an Android Based Smartwatch. Would be able to sync data to and from a Smartphone for display on the watch. Has Bluetooth and Wifi capability and a 48 hour battery life.

Amount Pledged/Total: $68,893/$100,000 (68.9%)
Days Remaining: 13
Amount Remaining: $31,107; or $2,393 per day.

3) The Focus Microscope Camera

Started By: Exo Labs (Seattle, WA)

Summary: This is an attachment that plugs into a microscope's Lens. It then transmits the image from the microscope to a USB device, such as a Tablet or PC. The company would like to create it for educational purposes, but it certainly does have some medical usages as well.

Amount Pledged/Total: $14,522/$29,000 (50.0%)
Days Remaining: 30
Amount Remaining: $14,478; or $483 per day.

Kickstarter Highlights for the week of 5/9/2013: >>36

I really don't like any of those.

C'mon people, share your thoughts.

>>43 Of the three from this week, I feel that the Microscope Camera has the most potential, while the Motorcycle Lighting project is the most beneficial. Also, I've already selected three for this Thursday's update, but I'd like to find one or two more in the meantime.

bump

The following are Kickstarter Highlights for 5/23/2013:

1) Health and Fitness Smart Wristband

Started By: Phyode (Mountain View, CA)

Summary: This stylish armband is designed to monitor the body's autonomic nervous system (ANS) through electrical pulses. Body measurement analytics can be synced through mobile app.

Amount Pledged/Total: $52,287/$100,000 (52.3%)
Days Remaining: 40
Amount Remaining: $47,713; or $1,193 per day.

2) Environmental Monitoring Hardware/API

Started By: Acrobotic Industries (Pasadena, CA)

Summary: This is a project to manufacture circuit boards which collect data on CO2/NO2 concentrations in the air, as well as temperature, light intensity, sound levels, and humidity. That data is then logged into analytics software (much like the mobile app in Project Highlight 1) for tracking and analysis purposes.

Amount Pledged/Total: $15,644/$50,000 (31.2%)
Days Remaining: 24
Amount Remaining: $34,356; or $1,432 per day.

3) HitFilm for Mac

Started By: FXhome (Norwich, UK)

Summary: HitFilm is a Windows-based 3D Video Editing/Effects application. Reccomended by director Freddie Wong, PC Pro magazine and others in the Video Software scene, the company that produces it is trying to create a native version for Apple's Mac OS.

Amount Pledged/Total: £17,125/£25,000 (68.5%)
Days Remaining: 15
Amount Remaining: £7,480; or £499 per day.

4) Sustainable Indoor Farm

Started By: Jake King-Gilbert (Dallas, TX)

Summary: This project has a rather simple goal: to build a hydroponics garden with which to provide abundant produce to the Dallas community. Would use 90% less water than standard farming methods, and eliminate transportation costs (both economic and environmental). Will produce 2000 plants per month at full capacity.

Amount Pledged/Total: $1,747/$8,976 (19.5%)
Days Remaining: 33
Amount Remaining: $7,229; or $220 per day.

5) The ATOM Multipurpose Tool

Started By: Sean Connell (Lafayette, IN)

Summary: This is a bottle opener/hex wrench/hex key/screwdriver/pry bar/ruler/protractor/file/cutter. That fits on your keyring. It is basically the key version of a Swiss Army Knife.

Amount Pledged/Total: $2,698/$40,000 (6.75%)
Days Remaining: 28
Amount Remaining: $37,302; or $1,333 per day.

Kickstarter Highlights for the week of 5/16/2013: >>42