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Laser Razor suspended by Kickstarter

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121–130 of 132 posts

Re: Laser Razor suspended by Kickstarter

#121
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?

Most blond people don't have blond beards.

Source: blond hair, reddish-brown facial hair.

Re: Laser Razor suspended by Kickstarter

#122
I couldn't help but wonder if this would ultimately produce the same result as the "No No" shaver which, from what I read, is just a hot wire that burns the hair at the root.

The reviews make it sound like its a rather slow and smelly affair shaving this way.

Re: Laser Razor suspended by Kickstarter

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt you could get more than a watt out of a AAA anyway.

A one-watt laser is pretty powerful (Class 4). Most laser pointers in the US can't exceed 5 milliwatts. One watt is several times what's needed to light various common materials on fire. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woiTedSKPrk

They do additionally claim a 10 year battery life.

Re: Laser Razor suspended by Kickstarter

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

The Feds go after people who just walk away with the money. They do not, and should not, go after people who fail to achieve the objective -- that would defeat the point of crowdfunding.

Re: Laser Razor suspended by Kickstarter

#125
post #119

Um, folks, you're missing the obvious. Optic fiber glass is SHARP AS HELL . So, make the thing light up with pretty lights and colors and expose a sharp glass edge for cutting. Works like a razor, cuts incredibly closely, and has ooh shiny for marketing. I'm not seeing a problem with this.

you don't belong here

Re: Laser Razor suspended by Kickstarter

#126

It's sad that people thought it was real, forget about lasers and stuff it's basic common sense. A AAA battery doesn't store enough power to drive a laser capable of burning hair for any reasonable amount of time. When the laser isn't interrupted by the hair it has to go some where which means that heat is produced, if it can get something hot enough to burn the hair off it would get hot enough that you won't be able…

They say they don't burn anything. From their FAQ:

Does it produce a smell?

No. Because we're not actually burning the hair, it doesn't produce a burnt hair smell.

Which sounds interesting, if it is not burning then what? Just melting?

Re: Laser Razor suspended by Kickstarter

#127
post #113

I don't like what has become of kickstarter, but I think it's more of it's users fault than the company. They are really trying to stick to their values and principals, and mission despite having the possibilty to go the usual 'lets raise bazillions and get some flippin growth and extinguish the competition' way

There's more than one Kickstarter. Lots of us live below the million-dollar campaigns that are more the product than whatever's being sold. With less hype and more right-minded Kickstarter patrons, everything's a little more straightforward. It's the middle-class campaigns that remain the heart of Kickstarter.

Re: Laser Razor suspended by Kickstarter

#128

I really want a Kickstarter review site, where people can post projects. Since non-backers cannot post comments there is no way to let people know that 'this project is probably not going to work'. Snopes for Kickstarter?

http://drop-kicker.com was excellent from an engineering viewpoint but it's gone dormant. http://eevblog.com/forum/crowd-funded-projects/ is not bad if you want to hear a bunch of skeptical engineers tear things to shreds.

A site that focuses on the shipping milestones, the true measure of success rather than meeting an arbitrary goal, would be valuable.

Re: Laser Razor suspended by Kickstarter

#129
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

The Feds go after people who just walk away with the money. They do not, and should not, go after people who fail to achieve the objective -- that would defeat the point of crowdfunding.

> They do not, and should not, go after people who fail to achieve the objective -- that would defeat the point of crowdfunding.

I agree. But they can somehow force the hands of Kickstarter and its competitors to have some mechanism in place to protect consumers from contributing to such bogus projects. I looked at the Kickstarter page and it seems any creature can post and request their projects be funded. Some of the scam are poorly disguised while others are masterfully disguised such as the one for which the is thread is created.

Re: Laser Razor suspended by Kickstarter

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/tellspec-what-s-in-your-f...

I'm assuming from the context you're touting that as an example of a "scam product" - first time I've heard of them but http://tellspec.com/order/ has beta device for purchase at present and they appear to be getting plaudits eg "Selected to be part of the HIVE at TED Med 2015" is on their website (and confirmed at TED MED). Surely ordering the beta would show straight away that the product was entirely non-functiona…

Yes, almost certainly a scam, for a few reasons. The first being that hand-held Raman spectroscopy devices are currently the realm of extremely pricey systems that are targeted at industry primarily (we're talking $10k at the very, very low end). Building a hand-held device that could do even a tiny fraction of what those units are capable of would be hugely disruptive for that market. So why not approach that market at all? Probably because it's vastly more savvy than consumers. Additionally, there is absolutely zero hard info anywhere about their device, it's design, it's specs, anything like that. Not only isn't there a specrum, there isn't even a "this is what a spectrum from our final equipment might look like" representation. It's all smoke and mirrors.

The biggest giveaway in that particular campaign though is something that most ordinary people won't pick up on: gluten. You tell someone that a spectrometer can detect sugar, they'll nod, you tell someone that it can detect gluten and they'll still nod, but people who know better will have their ears perk up. Because gluten is just a protein, and proteins are a nightmare when it comes to spectroscopy. Spectroscopy picks up the different bonds that are in a molecule. A simple molecule with only a few, very different bonds is easy to distinguish. But proteins are polymers made up of tens of thousands to millions of amino-acids, which blur together in spectroscopy. To distinguish different proteins from one another with any kind of spectroscopy (whether Raman, IR, or even NMR) requires high end equipment which can give you very high resolution spectra. A low cost, consumer grade spectrometer is going to have very low resolution and be even more difficult to do. If they could pull it off it would be a tremendous breakthrough. The idea that they've made such a huge leap without seeking traditional investors to go after the industrial market, without any substantive research backing is, frankly, not robust against the much more realistic probability that they are pulling some sort of scam that involves a device that maybe has some capability or other but is nothing like what they say it is.

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