News You Can Bruise for 2011 July 16

Sat Jul 16 2011 07:09 Month of Kickstarter: Sun Text: Month of Kickstarter is halfway over! I've backed 19 projects (21 by the time this entry is done) and it's time to check back in on their progress.

• Two of the projects I've backed have been funded (OpenPhoto and WWJD).
• Three of them are very close to their goals. If this metaproject has gotten you interested in Kickstarter, and you want to start off by feeling the rush you get from pushing a project over the edge, try backing the computer history zine, The Power of the Crystals, or the Lyssan board game.
• Four of them are chugging along. I'm not going to put up a bunch more links even though that would be the smart thing to do, because this entry is already more weblog than I planned to write today. Just go to my Kickstarter page and scroll down.
• Ten of them seem to have stalled. I will link again to the tessellated cookie cutters because I really want that one to succeed.

So I'm looking at about a 1/3 success rate, which is pretty good given that I've avoided big, obviously-gonna-succeed projects like M.C. Frontalot's music video.

OK, with that navel-gazing out of the way, let's check out today's Projects of Month of Kickstarter! First we have "Open Source Programmer's Text Editor using Canvas and WebGL".

This will be a fully featured text editor implemented using the canvas element in HTML5. It will support WebGL for graphics acceleration for visually pleasing but uncluttered scrolling, anti-aliasing and other effects. This is designed not for the wow factor but to minimize visual irritation when working with text for long periods of time.

Second, it's SCI-ARC/Caltech's entry in the Solar Decathlon, "a U.S. Department of Energy Sponsored competition which challenges 20 architecture and engineering schools from around the world to design and build a solar-powered, 'net-zero' house." Bonus: the house looks like your robot pet from the future.