Before the Backers highlights up-and-coming products that haven’t yet made their crowdfunding debut.
RevAMP
Car batteries are rarely thought of — until, of course, they’re dead. Of course, at that point, they’re nothing more than extremely heavy and possibly explosive paperweights. The RevAMP is a product that replaces standard lead batteries. While it may have a similar price and come in a familiar size, it has several tricks up its sleeve. For one, it doesn’t die because it turns itself off when necessary. It’s also eco-friendly, ditching the lead, acid, and the potential for explosive hydrogen for earth-friendly materials. It’s also extremely light, weighing in at only seven pounds. Don’t take its lightness for weakness, though, as it’s capable of generating 2000 amps of power over a suggested 20-year lifespan. Keep an eye on Kickstarter for this one.
20/20 Display Technologies
Over four billion people in the world today are afflicted with some sort of visual impairment. With life today so heavily centered on devices like smartphones, tablets, PCs, and television screens, what used to a be mere annoyance has become much more problematic.
20/20 Display Technologies addresses this problem with a clever solution. The product is a screen which can be placed over any of the aforementioned devices and calibrated such that it can produce a correct version of the underlying image based on an individual’s unique prescription.
Not only will those with mild visual impairments like nearsightedness benefit from this product, it will also prove beneficial for individuals with higher order vision problems that can’t be corrected with glasses or contacts. This product will make its rounds on both Kickstarter and Indiegogo in the coming months.
Lantern
The Outernet is a wireless, parallel internet of sorts, continuously sending out files like e-books, news, maps, etc. with almost global coverage. The radio involved in this equation is the Lantern, an incredibly portable device capable of receiving 2MB of data per day. Accessible data includes a few topics, including educational materials and disaster updates, along with requested and sponsored content. Notably, all of this information is accessible through any Wi-Fi and a browser.
The company’s goal is to provide everyone in the world with a baseline of knowledge that will ultimately help push our society forward. It is indeed a lofty goal, but the Lantern is ready to succeed with its combination of solar power, support for multiple languages, anonymity when consuming content, and the company’s promise to keep content completely free forever. There’s no word yet as to which site Lantern will choose to pursue its crowdfunding efforts on.