I'm becoming a fan of Kickstarter, because it's democratizing manufacturing and enabling individuals with an idea to bring it to market faster. In a way, it is the hardware equivalent of the App Store. As consumers, we benefit form a wider variety of gadgets that otherwise might never see the light of day. The downside is, as a Kickstarter funder, you have to make a leap of faith and preorder an item without the benefit of even seeing a prototype of the product in person.
The team at Studio Neat has created and launched a few products on Kickstarter, such as a tripod mount for the iPhone, but the one I really liked, and bought at MacWorld, is their Cosmonaut stylus.
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