Skip to main content

Indiegogo stops by DT’s booth at CES to show off some cool crowdfunding projects

Crowdfunding is hot right now, but what do creators do once they’ve got the money? That’s the question Indiegogo wants to answer, and its CEO David Mandlebrot stopped by the DT booth at CES 2018 in Las Vegas to discuss that question and show off some neat new Indiegogo projects.

The company’s current focus is on a concept-to-market approach, where the crowdfunding site provides assistance to creators before, during, and after the crowdfunding experience. One example is Travis the Translator, a successful crowdfunding campaign for a device that can translate from and to 80 languages.

Mandlebrot says that Indiegogo assisted the Travis team by connecting them with partner Arrow Electronics. Arrow, in turn, helped Travis source parts to make its innovative handheld translator a reality.

But it’s not always about tech: Mandlebrot says that there’s typically a 50/50 split between tech gadgets and other useful inventions when it comes to crowdfunding projects. He had one such invention to show off at the DT booth called the Mifold — think of it as a booster seat without the boost. Instead of the child sitting on a seat that allows the safety belt to safely restrain him or her, the Mifold instead brings the top part of the belt down to the child’s shoulder, where it can safely restrain them without causing discomfort.

Of course, we’re a tech site here at DigitalTrends, so Mandlebrot had plenty to show us, including a new type of VR system called the VR Free by SensoryX. These new type of gloves include built-in sensors to track finger movements without the need for any other tracking devices, which the company claims makes its offering more immersive, intuitive, convenient, and precise.

We were impressed with the demo they showed us at the booth, which really seemed to allow for fine movements — like playing a virtual piano — that might be more difficult to do with other platforms.

Ed Oswald
For fifteen years, Ed has written about the latest and greatest in gadgets and technology trends. At Digital Trends, he's…
Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards
Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Read more
AI turned Breaking Bad into an anime — and it’s terrifying
Split image of Breaking Bad anime characters.

These days, it seems like there's nothing AI programs can't do. Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, deepfakes have done digital "face-offs" with Hollywood celebrities in films and TV shows, VFX artists can de-age actors almost instantly, and ChatGPT has learned how to write big-budget screenplays in the blink of an eye. Pretty soon, AI will probably decide who wins at the Oscars.

Within the past year, AI has also been used to generate beautiful works of art in seconds, creating a viral new trend and causing a boon for fan artists everywhere. TikTok user @cyborgism recently broke the internet by posting a clip featuring many AI-generated pictures of Breaking Bad. The theme here is that the characters are depicted as anime characters straight out of the 1980s, and the result is concerning to say the least. Depending on your viewpoint, Breaking Bad AI (my unofficial name for it) shows how technology can either threaten the integrity of original works of art or nurture artistic expression.
What if AI created Breaking Bad as a 1980s anime?
Playing over Metro Boomin's rap remix of the famous "I am the one who knocks" monologue, the video features images of the cast that range from shockingly realistic to full-on exaggerated. The clip currently has over 65,000 likes on TikTok alone, and many other users have shared their thoughts on the art. One user wrote, "Regardless of the repercussions on the entertainment industry, I can't wait for AI to be advanced enough to animate the whole show like this."

Read more
4 simple pieces of tech that helped me run my first marathon
Garmin Forerunner 955 Solar displaying pace information.

The fitness world is littered with opportunities to buy tech aimed at enhancing your physical performance. No matter your sport of choice or personal goals, there's a deep rabbit hole you can go down. It'll cost plenty of money, but the gains can be marginal -- and can honestly just be a distraction from what you should actually be focused on. Running is certainly susceptible to this.

A few months ago, I ran my first-ever marathon. It was an incredible accomplishment I had no idea I'd ever be able to reach, and it's now going to be the first of many I run in my lifetime. And despite my deep-rooted history in tech, and the endless opportunities for being baited into gearing myself up with every last product to help me get through the marathon, I went with a rather simple approach.

Read more