Tag: Quirky

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Chargers/Batteries Smart Home

The YOUMO modular power strip makes supplying power electrifying

While smartphones and laptops continue to slim down and offer more powerful specs, the humble strip keeps on chugging along in all its practical, drab glory, doling out power and taking names. Most of the time, though, it doesn’t offer much in the way of functionality.

The YOUMO is a smart modular power strip offering users a wide range of plug-and-go modules for a custom power solution for any situation.  Good Gadgets, the three-man team behind the Kickstarter campaign, has designed YOUMO modules to be lightweight for travel and aesthetically pleasing, a far cry from most dollar store varieties. It all starts with a base cord in three different lengths and seven different colors. From there, six modules can connect in any combination to each other.

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Quirky files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as Wink smart home system goes up for grabs

Before Kickstarter emerged as the leading hub of crowdfunded devices, there was Quirky, a company devoted to reinventing invention. Founded by Ben Kaufman, who had previously founded the Mophie accessories company best known for its iPhone snap-on batteries.

Quirky has a model that is in some ways the opposite of Kickstarter’s or Indiegogo’s. Rather than have the crowd fund a product and have inventors create it, Quicky’s model was that the crowd would suggest products and then Quirky would create it. The company’s New York offices were a hub of professionals specializing in all aspects of product creation including marketing, legal, sourcing, branding and industrial and mechanical design. Inventors would get a perpetual royalty on designs that became products, and people who suggested product names and other attributes would also receive a small percentage. Quirky staff voted on which products moved forward in a weekly meeting. It scored what became perhaps it’s biggest win relatively early with the snaking Pivot Power power strip that spawned several spinoffs.

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Hasbro, Indiegogo team for game design contest

Companies such as Quirky and Edison Nation have shown that big-name brands are happy to tap into great ideas that come from the crowd. Now Indiegogo, which has run a number of partnership programs, has teamed up with toy giant Hasbro for a game design contest.

Participants fill out a form on the Hasbro site that provides information about the team and the game. Ideas will be judged on several criteria, including gameplay, story/theme, viability and “potential for fun-ness.” The winning individual or team will get $10,000 and a trip out to Hasbro HQ to meet with game designers. Once five finalists are selected, they’ll have the option to crowdfund their products on Indiegogo with Hasbro providing publicity support. However, the game designers are responsible for fulfilling their own rewards.

Game designers who think they’ve got a Clue in putting in the hard-Scrabble effort of creating the next game Monopoly will have to enter their submissions by September 30th with the winner announced on December 3rd, two days after the Indiegogo campaigns close.