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Laser Razor suspended by Kickstarter

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Re: Laser Razor suspended by Kickstarter

#101

Post by homulilly »

cabbeer wrote: post #7
steckerbrett wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no laser there. If there was a laser there it would be a significant hazard to everybody in the room, so it's good it's completely fake. With the sort of power you would need to be cutting hairs in any capacity simply looking at diffuse reflections (think a laser dot at a wall) would have the ability to permanently damage your vision. The video is someone fooling around with a piece of aluminum and a hot wire…

> It's a testament to human stupidity that something this blatant managed to get $4M. That's a bit harsh. Most people don't understand technology on a functional level. Ask a "regular" person how programming, the internet or their mobile phone works and they won't be able to give you a technical explanation. In fact, most modern technology tries to hide the internal workings.. "it just works".

There's a big difference between knowing something off the top of your head and doing some basic research before giving strangers your money.

Re: Laser Razor suspended by Kickstarter

#102

Post by ljk »

d23 wrote: post #42
DannoHung wrote: post #40

The thing that is weird about this case is that one of the principals, Morgan Gustavsson, is actually the dude who invented the real laser hair removal that is used in clinics and has been involved in dermatology since. I don't know if he was actually involved in this project or not, but that was the one thing that made me think that this maybe wasn't 100% a scam? Anyway, the implication they make in their pitch isn'…

> Of course, if this really is such a revolutionary advance, why go to Kickstarter to bring it to market? Why not traditional investors. The obvious benefit being that you don't actually have to give Kickstarter "investors" any money back.

> The obvious benefit being that you don't actually have to give Kickstarter "investors" any money back.

This is pretty interesting, so what's stopping new startups to make apps and publish on kickstarter to avoid paying the investors back later? Also, why do these "investors", more like donors, so willing to throw their money at the screen?

Re: Laser Razor suspended by Kickstarter

#103

Post by darryl42 »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #91
beloch wrote: post #84

To those looking for more concrete info on how this razor is supposed to work, here's the patent for it: http://www.google.com/patents/US9017322 As far as I can tell, the idea is to use evanescent coupling to transfer light into hair follicles. There's no free space laser beam, just an optical fiber that you drag across your face. They also claim that chromophores (color bearing molecules) in hair can be severed at r…

> chromophores (color bearing molecules) in hair can be severed at relatively low powers What if you're blond?

Or grey

Re: Laser Razor suspended by Kickstarter

#104

Post by pavornyoh »

mesozoic wrote: post #98
pavornyoh wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The obvious benefit being that you don't actually have to give Kickstarter "investors" any money back. Shouldn't that make them have strong check and balances in place to help people funding these projects?

You would think...

In an article in the Huffington post a while back, it said the Feds are now going after people who don't follow through. I also hope while they are at it, they can do something to help protect these vulnerable people giving money to support projects without proper education about what they are supporting.

Here is the article -http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/11/feds-regulate-crowd...

Re: Laser Razor suspended by Kickstarter

#105

Post by henrikschroder »

ljk wrote: post #102
d23 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course, if this really is such a revolutionary advance, why go to Kickstarter to bring it to market? Why not traditional investors. The obvious benefit being that you don't actually have to give Kickstarter "investors" any money back.

> The obvious benefit being that you don't actually have to give Kickstarter "investors" any money back. This is pretty interesting, so what's stopping new startups to make apps and publish on kickstarter to avoid paying the investors back later? Also, why do these "investors", more like donors, so willing to throw their money at the screen?

> so what's stopping new startups to make apps and publish on kickstarter to avoid paying the investors back later?

Absolutely nothing, plenty of niche games are funded through Kickstarter.

> why do these "investors", more like donors, so willing to throw their money at the screen?

Because someone is promising to try to build a thing they want, that no professional investor is willing to fund.

Re: Laser Razor suspended by Kickstarter

#106

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #91
beloch wrote: post #84

To those looking for more concrete info on how this razor is supposed to work, here's the patent for it: http://www.google.com/patents/US9017322 As far as I can tell, the idea is to use evanescent coupling to transfer light into hair follicles. There's no free space laser beam, just an optical fiber that you drag across your face. They also claim that chromophores (color bearing molecules) in hair can be severed at r…

> chromophores (color bearing molecules) in hair can be severed at relatively low powers What if you're blond?

Laser hair removal doesn't work well with light hair from what I recall, they usually require you to use electrolysis instead.

I imagine that we're not doing something radically different here, so the answer to this would probably be 'it won't work'.

Re: Laser Razor suspended by Kickstarter

#107

Post by steven2012 »

This current phenomenon about crowdsourcing products is similar to the GroupOn/flash sale phenomenon, and as the products get shittier and shittier, and as more and more get disillusioned by it, the entire space will die.

Kickstarter and IndieGoGo need to do a much, much better job policing this, otherwise they will be out of business in 2 years. There are too many shitty products with great marketing videos that are taking a lot of money, and they will likely all be disappointing as hell.

Re: Laser Razor suspended by Kickstarter

#108

Post by rasz_pl »

Sephr wrote: post #77

> Backers received an email from Kickstarter saying the Laser Razor was "in violation of our rule requiring working prototypes of physical products that are offered as rewards". Interesting. Was this a recent policy change? Control VR never showed any working prototypes either, and their campaign was allowed (this was in 2014). Their demonstration video was later revealed to be using another company's significantly m…

>have everyone's money

not everyones, just the suckers. Yes, we are at a point you are a sucker if you buy into crowdfunding without doing due diligence. Batterizer, MuOptics, Soap router, they all had signs of being scams from the start, but still managed to defraud people for over a $1mil.

Re: Laser Razor suspended by Kickstarter

#110

Post by rasz_pl »

ortusdux wrote: post #59

In light of the recent actions of the Washington State Attorney General, it takes balls to try and pull a scam like this. The AG ruled against the people behind a kickstarter campaign for a card game when they did not ship rewards for two years. The original campaign raised 25k and the judgement was for 56k. The ruling was on behalf of 31 residents out of 810 backers. The company is slowly shipping units and it looks…

Yes, that punishment was pretty severe, offender had to ... promise to never do it again.
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