kickstarter

An automated home where everything from the lights to the refrigerator can be controlled by a smartphone is still a distant dream for most of us. You may have an opportunity get a high-tech jump on the neighbors if the Sonte Film Wi-Fi digital shades Kickstarter project comes to fruition.

Sonte Film reacts to an electric current and can turn from opaque to clear and back again almost instantaneously. The film can be connected to Wi-Fi so that an app for both Android and iOS can let users control the opacity.… Read more

Kickstarter has been fertile ground for bicycle accessories. There have been smart handlebars, anti-theft bike lights, and wheel LEDs. Joining that illustrious lineup is Monkey Light Pro, a bike wheel display system that creates lit-up images and animations.

The Monkey Light Pro consists of four bars with 256 full-color LEDs, which mount inside the bike wheel. A Web-based application lets you build a playlist of images or animations to run on the system. Download that information to the device via Bluetooth and go riding. The images are stabilized at speeds between 10 and 40 mph and the battery lasts for up to 8 hours.… Read more

If Chitty Chitty Bang Bang were made now, it would probably look a bit more like something Batman or James Bond would drive, but we'd like to think it would look a little more like this.

Called simply "B," the toy, which is currently being funded on Kickstarter, is the creation of U.K. computational-engineering PhD student Witold Mielniczek. Unlike other remote-controlled toys out there, it's also a multitalented piece of gadgetry that's able to traverse both ground and sky.

Most quadcopters we've seen to date have four "wheels" at the corners, horizontally aligned with helicopter blades spinning inside. Mielniczek has tilted the wheels upright -- and made them functional for ground-based driving. … Read more

In general, bicycles haven't adopted the same high-tech features as many cars. Turn signals are done by hand, and GPS equates to using good old-fashioned brain power or the information you have on your phone. Helios Bars, a Kickstarter project, can turn a regular bike into a smart bike.

The feature list is a fun read. There are left- and right-turn signals, a headlight, GPS tracking in case someone nabs your ride, proximity lighting that senses your presence, and a visual speedometer with color-changing lights. There is also a turn-by-turn navigation feature. Rear-facing LEDS on the handlebars indicate when a turn is coming up.… Read more

Do you still have your original "Star Wars" action figures? Mine are tucked away in storage, but looking at Rob Burden's artwork makes me want to dig them out.

The San Francisco artist is so obsessed with his old "Star Wars" figures that he does 10-foot-tall oil paintings of them, like "The Birth of a Jedi," above. The works don't portray the characters from the series, but the actual action figures themselves.

Now he's taking his passion to new heights on Kickstarter with a $24,000 campaign to produce two enormous 10x14-foot "Star Wars" canvases. … Read more

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This week on Crave, we take a look at Tim-e, an iPhone dock that wakes you up in the most annoying ways possible. We salute Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield on making space travel cool again, and demonstrate Petswitch, which lets you put your face on your cat's visage. … Read more

For the snooze kings and queens of the world, an even more annoying alarm clock is a must. Well, here's a droid with a "hilarious personality" that looks like it needs a good kick.

Tim-e is an iPhone dock with arms and legs. It wriggles and dances and is generally annoying. But that's the whole point.

The subject of a Kickstarter campaign that's aiming for $150,000, Tim-e (pronounced "Timmy") uses your iPhone screen as an animated face.

In the promo video below, it has a blue, animated mug and puts on a snarky routine. It recalls the genie from Disney's "Aladdin." … Read more

America has a fat problem, and it's not just the humans. Many pets are also toting some extra poundage.

You could, of course, take your dog for more walks, or spend more time playing attack-the-fuzzy-thing with your cat. Or you could invest in a pet treadmill. Better yet, check out PetTread, a pet-treadmill design that looks like a giant hamster wheel.

PetTread is looking to raise $110,000 on Kickstarter to take a prototype version into production. Like many inventions, the PetTread came about as a result of personal experience. Creator John Gosson had an overweight cat named Noonie. Adjusting her diet didn't help much, so he used his electrical engineering background to craft a power treadmill she could safely use.… Read more

What if you could easily add custom-designed circuits to DIY projects like 3D-printed stuff? Here's a small mill that can churn them out with precision and power.

Othermill is a Kickstarter project that has quickly exceeded its fundraising goal. It's designed to be a portable, desktop three-axis mill that can produce printed circuit boards, jewelry, molds, and other objects.

Conceived by the wizards at San Francisco-based R&D shop Otherfab/Otherlab, known for its crazy inflatable robots, Othermill works with CAD software to cut material in three dimensions. Unlike 3D printing, it cuts material away instead of adding it. … Read more