Kickstarter uses crowdsourcing to fund creative projects. MakerBot lets users collaborate on design projects to create almost anything (as long as it’s 5” x 5” x 5”) using the company’s 3D printing technology. OnLive streams video games and entire operating systems through the cloud to TVs, PCs, Macs, phones and tablets. All three represent a new era of openness and possibility on the web.
'We’ve completely virtualized computing. This is cloud in the most general sense of the word.'In a panel moderated by Wired’s Jason Tanz at at the inaugural NExTWORK technology conference, Kickstarter cofounder Yancey Strickler, MakerBot Industries cofounder Bre Pettis, and OnLive founder Steve Perlman talked about their respective projects.
First up, an online funding platform for creative projects: Kickstarter. More than 700,000 people have contributed over $70 million to Kickstarter projects, 100 of which are created each day. Aspiring project creators set a financial goal, and Kickstarter users can contribute to see those creators’ ideas realized. “Every project is a story, a story of a real person doing something of note,” said Strickler.
While Kickstarter doesn’t allow backers to be rewarded financially, project creators can offer other incentives to contributors. The film Blue Like Jazz, which went over budget and seemed destined never to be completed, raised over $350,000 through Kickstarter. Everyone who backed the project will receive a personal phone call from the director saying ‘thank you’. Those who donated $1,000 or more will get an associate producer credit. The seven individuals who donated over $10,000 will get a personal screening with the film’s director in their own home.
Up next, MakerBot Industries. The company created the world’s first affordable 3D printer, the ‘Thing-O-Matic’, which has the potential to revolutionize design and manufacturing. ”Because we’re so used to buying things,” said Pettis, “when we find out when we can make anything ourselves, right now, we go, ‘What?!’”
Using open source programs like OpenSCAD or Povray, designers can create models then print them out with the Thing-O-Matic. They can also upload their designs to the ‘Thingiverse,’ and download and modify the designs of others, creating a veritable cornucopia of useful gadgets and awesome art. If you need some shower rings, you can fire up the Thing-O-Matic and print some out. Or, if you prefer, you can put Optimus Prime’s head on a Gangsta model and make a Primsta. “As with anything on the internet, unexpected things happen,” said Pettis.
If Steve Perlman has his way, you could access the ‘Thingiverse’ and design Thing-O-Matic models on any device through the cloud. On stage, Perlman showed off a live demo of OnLive, his online service that streams video games to homes across the U.S., handling all the processing remotely through a number of data centers scattered across the country. With the support of Juniper Networks, OnLive will soon be able to stream entire operating systems to televisions, tablets, phones, Macs and PCs. “We have completely embraced the iPad but we’re running Windows,” said Perlman, “and we’re doing this whole damn thing from 3,000 miles away.”
Perlman pulled up his Powerpoint presentation on his computer, sent it over to his iPad, then used the iPad’s voice recognition feature to type a few new words on the screen. He navigated to a flash-heavy website, which ran without a hitch. He opened Maya, a taxing 3D modelling program that could never run natively on Apple’s tablet. It all functioned perfectly, and it was all powered by a data center running Windows in California.
“We’ve completely virtualized computing,” said Perlman. “This is cloud in the most general sense of the word.”
See Also: - Marius Watz, Makerbot Artist in Residence
