Laura Dobberstein writes via The Register: Mycroft AI, creator of a Linux-based virtual assistant, announced on Friday it would not be able to fulfill rewards for its Mark II Kickstarter campaign. Furthermore, without immediate new investment, the company will be forced to cease development by the end of the month, said the company's former CEO and operator of the Kickstarter campaign, Joshua Montgomery. "We will still be shipping all orders that are made through the Mycroft website, because these sales directly cover the costs of producing and shipping the products," confirmed Montgomery. He said the company was now at bare-bones employee count: layoffs had reduced the staff down to two developers, one customer service agent and one attorney. Montgomery said he had "poured a lot of [his] own savings, and additional funding from [his] foundation into Mycroft" but the company was running out of cash.

Mycroft AI experienced many challenges one would expect to encounter at a startup, such as difficulty finding hardware partners, which forced it to resort to off-the-shelf parts. [...] But what truly killed the company and product, he claimed, were expenses related to ongoing litigation. In 2020, Mycroft AI was sued for patent infringement from what it labeled a "patent troll." The company suing Mycroft AI, Voice Tech Corporation, dropped its litigation, but not before costing the startup deeply. "If we had that million dollars we would be in a very different state right now," said Montgomery. Billed as an "open answer" to Amazon Echo and Google Home but with data privacy, the Mark II went from costing $99 in components each to $300. That total doesn't include the costs of spending $100,000 on injection molds. The product currently sells on the company's website for $499.

The Kickstarter campaign brought in 2,245 backers for the smart speaker and raised over $394,000. The goal had been set at a mere $50,000. It's uncertain how many backers received a Mark II. Backers have left disappointed and upset responses on its Kickstarter page -- some mourning the death of hardware crowdsourcing, some pleading for their product, some alleging scam, and others urging the company to push through. "Send us the components to assemble the pieces ourselves if that's the outstanding problem at this point," offered one Kickstarter supporter. "Why can't we make it into a group project to assemble MyCroft II in our homes?" "I don't mind that I don't get my Mark II: the bigger goal of open source artificial intelligence was more important to me," said another.

In 2019 Slashdot covered Mycroft, an open-source voice assistant for Linux-based devices (including Raspberry Pi boards). But this week the company's CEO posted on Kickstarter that "without immediate new investment, we will have to cease development by the end of the month....

"We will still be shipping all orders that are made through the Mycroft website, because these sales directly cover the costs of producing and shipping the products. However we do not have the funds to continue fulfilling rewards from this crowdfunding campaign, or to even continue meaningful operations."

The announcement details Mycroft's long, strange trip, from a hardware-focused partner that couldn't provide stable hardware to their switch to using off-the-shelf parts — followed by supply chain disruptions (with hefty import and manufacturing fees): The best plan we could devise to fulfill the remaining campaign rewards was to use the slim margins we have on new sales to cover the increased costs of hardware production. With that plan in mind, we pushed forward and started production. We got plastic injection molds cast. We started printing custom PCBs. We engaged audio engineers to optimize the quality and volume of the sound output. We got the device FCC and CE approved. Many of these steps took multiple iterations to get right, and there are many more things that I'm glossing over. All up this costs — a lot of money. Far more than the total contributions from the campaign, which is why I personally committed so much additional funding. I could see a clear way forward that strengthened Mycroft as a project, as a business, and as a community.

So what went wrong? The single most expensive item that I could not predict was our ongoing litigation against the non-practicing patent entity that has never stopped trying to destroy us. If we had that million dollars we would be in a very different state right now.

With so much of our focus on hardware, and less funding to devote to improving our software — the quality and features available on the Mark II at launch were clearly underwhelming. It is more robust and stable than it has ever been, but this came at the cost of fewer new features. That in turn I believe has resulted in less than flattering reviews, and little mainstream coverage. The hardware itself has proven itself to be a solid base to work from, but without good reviews you get less sales, and without strong sales, the plan doesn't work.
Thanks to stx23 (Slashdot reader #14,942) for sharing the news.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: When Stable Diffusion, the text-to-image AI developed by startup Stability AI, was open sourced earlier this year, it didn't take long for the internet to wield it for porn-creating purposes. Communities across Reddit and 4chan tapped the AI system to generate realistic and anime-style images of nude characters, mostly women, as well as non-consensual fake nude imagery of celebrities. But while Reddit quickly shut down many of the subreddits dedicated to AI porn, and communities like NewGrounds, which allows some forms of adult art, banned AI-generated artwork altogether, new forums emerged to fill the gap. By far the largest is Unstable Diffusion, whose operators are building a business around AI systems tailored to generate high-quality porn. The server's Patreon -- started to keep the server running as well as fund general development -- is currently raking in over $2,500 a month from several hundred donors.

"In just two months, our team expanded to over 13 people as well as many consultants and volunteer community moderators," Arman Chaudhry, one of the members of the Unstable Diffusion admin team, told TechCrunch in a conversation via Discord. "We see the opportunity to make innovations in usability, user experience and expressive power to create tools that professional artists and businesses can benefit from." Unsurprisingly, some AI ethicists are as worried as Chaudhry is optimistic. While the use of AI to create porn isn't new [...] Unstable Diffusion's models are capable of generating higher-fidelity examples than most. The generated porn could have negative consequences particularly for marginalized groups, the ethicists say, including the artists and adult actors who make a living creating porn to fulfill customers' fantasies.

Unstable Diffusion got its start in August -- around the same time that the Stable Diffusion model was released. Initially a subreddit, it eventually migrated to Discord, where it now has roughly 50,000 members. [...] Today, the Unstable Diffusion server hosts AI-generated porn in a range of different art styles, sexual preferences and kinks. [...] Users in these channels can invoke the bot to generate art that fits the theme, which they can then submit to a "starboard" if they're especially pleased with the results. Unstable Diffusion claims to have generated over 4,375,000 images to date. On a semiregular basis, the group hosts competitions that challenge members to recreate images using the bot, the results of which are used in turn to improve Unstable Diffusion's models. As it grows, Unstable Diffusion aspires to be an "ethical" community for AI-generated porn -- i.e. one that prohibits content like child pornography, deepfakes and excessive gore. Users of the Discord server must abide by the terms of service and submit to moderation of the images that they generate; Chaudhry claims the server employs a filter to block images containing people in its "named persons" database and has a full-time moderation team. "Chaudhry sees Unstable Diffusion evolving into an organization to support broader AI-powered content generation, sponsoring dev groups and providing tools and resources to help teams build their own systems," reports TechCrunch. "He claims that Equilibrium AI secured a spot in a startup accelerator program from an unnamed 'large cloud compute provider' that comes with a 'five-figure' grant in cloud hardware and compute, which Unstable Diffusion will use to expand its model training infrastructure."

In addition to the grant, Unstable Diffusion will launch a Kickstarter campaign and seek venture funding, Chaudhry says.

"We plan to create our own models and fine-tune and combine them for specialized use cases which we shall spin off into new brands and products," Chaudhry added.

"Creators aren't getting paid," says Cory Doctorow. "That's because powerful corporations have figured out how to create chokepoints — that let them snatch up more of the value generated by creative work before it reaches creative workers."

But he's doing something about it.

Doctorow's teamed up with Melbourne-based law professor Rebecca Giblin, the director of Australia's Intellectual Property Research Institute, for a new book that first "pulls aside the veil on the tricks Big Tech and Big Content use..." But more importantly, it also presents specific ideas for "how we can recapture creative labor markets to make them fairer and more sustainable." Their announcement describes the book as "A Big Tech/Big Content disassembly manual," saying it's "built around shovel-ready ideas for shattering the chokepoints that squeeze creators and audiences — technical, commercial and legal blueprints for artists, fans, arts organizations, technologists, and governments to fundamentally restructure the broken markets for creative labor."

Or, as they explain later, "Our main focus is action." Lawrence Lessig says the authors "offer a range of powerful strategies for fighting back." Anil Dash described it as "a credible, actionable vision for a better, more collaborative future where artists get their fair due." And Douglas Rushkoff called the book "an infuriating yet inspiring call to collective action."

The book is titled "Chokepoint Capitalism: How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labor Markets and How We'll Win Them Back." And at one point their Kickstarter page lays down a thought-provoking central question about ownership. "For 40 years, every question about creators rights had the same answer: moar copyright. How's that worked out for artists?" And then it features a quote from Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales. "Copyright can't unrig a rigged market — for that you need worker power, antitrust, and solidarity."

A Kickstarter campaign to raise $10,000 has already raised $72,171 — in its first five days — from over 1,800 backers. That's partly because, underscoring one of the book's points, their Kickstarter campaign is offering "an audiobook Amazon won't sell." While Amazon will sell you a hardcover or Kindle edition of the book.... Audible has a hard and fast rule: if you're a publisher or writer who wants to sell your audiobook on Audible, you have to let it be wrapped in "Digital Rights Management," aka DRM: digital locks that permanently bind your work to the Audible platform. If a reader decides to leave Audible, DRM stops them taking the books they've already bought with them.... Every time Audible sells a book, DRM gives it a little bit more power to shake down authors and publishers. Amazon uses that stolen margin to eliminate competition and lock-in more users, ultimately giving it even more power over the people who actually make and produce books.
The announcement says their book "is about traps like the one Audible lays for writers and readers. We show how Big Tech and Big Content erect chokepoints between creators and audiences, allowing them to lock in artists and producers, eliminate competition, and extract far more than their fair share of revenues from creative labour. No way are we going to let Audible put its locks on our audiobook.

"So we're kickstarting it instead."

The announcement notes that Cory Doctorow himself has written dozens of books, "and he won't allow digital locks on any of them." And then in 2020, "Cory had an idea: what if he used Kickstarter to pre-sell his next audiobook? It was the most successful audiobook crowdfunding campaign in history."

So now Cory's working instead with independent audiobook studio Skyboat Media "to make great editions, which are sold everywhere except Audible (and Apple, which only carries Audible books): Libro.fm, Downpour, Google Play and his own storefront. Cory's first kickstarter didn't just smash all audiobook crowdfunding records — it showed publishers and other writers that there were tons of people who cared enough about writers getting paid fairly that they were willing to walk away from Amazon's golden cage. Now we want to send that message again — this time with a book that takes you behind the curtain to unveil the Machiavellian tactics Amazon and the other big tech and content powerhouses use to lock in users, creators and suppliers, eliminate competition, and extract more than their fair share....

Chokepoint Capitalism is not just a rollicking read, and a delightful listen: it also does good.

Your willingness to break out of the one-click default of buying from the Audible monopoly in support of projects like this sends a clear message to writers, publishers, and policymakers that you have had enough of the unfair treatment of creative workers, and you are demanding change.
Rewards include ebooks, audiobooks, hardcover copies, and even the donation of a copy to your local library. You can also pledge money without claiming a reward, or pledge $1 as a show of support for "a cryptographically signed email thanking you for backing the project. Think of it as a grift-free NFT."

Craig Newmark says the book documents "the extent to which competition's been lost throughout the creative industries, and how this pattern threatens every other worker. There is still time to do something about it, but the time to act is now."

About two-thirds of Americans now say they support unions, reports CNBC, "the highest approval rating since 1965." And suddenly in the last few months, "workers have been organizing at a pace this country hasn't seen since the Great Depression." Amazon has captured headlines for union drives at its warehouses, including a successful effort on New York's Staten Island. But activity is picking up elsewhere in retail and tech at big companies that are generally viewed as progressive, with no history of labor unions. As of Wednesday, 209 Starbucks stores have officially voted to unionize according to the National Labor Relations Board. First-ever unions have also formed at an Apple store in Maryland, a Google Fiber contractor, REI, Trader Joe's, Kickstarter and Activision Blizzard....

The union movement at Apple stores is progressing at a slower pace. The first union win among Apple's 270-plus U.S. stores happened on June 18, when workers in Towson, Maryland, voted 65 to 33 to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. No other stores have held a vote.... Three other stores have taken steps to unionize, although one in Atlanta withdrew its election petition in May. That same month, a memo was leaked showing Apple's anti-union talking points, instructing store managers to tell workers they could lose benefits and career opportunities if they organized....

Communications Workers of America, which has about 700,000 members, helped organize the Atlanta Apple store, as well as workers at Google. In March, Google Fiber contractors in Kansas City held an NLRB election, becoming the first to officially unionize under what's known as the Alphabet Workers Union. Nearly 1,000 other Google workers have also signed cards to join the AWU, but because the employees haven't officially held an NLRB election, their group is known as a minority union. "There's a lot of research that shows that most Americans want unions," said Sara Steffens, secretary-treasurer of Communications Workers of America. "They just don't want to go through this scary union-busting process...."

Google has also been accused of fighting back. The NLRB found that the company "arguably violated" labor law when it fired employees for speaking up. The Google Fiber contractors faced additional anti-union messaging in a letter from the contractor, which said "everyone will be stuck with the union and forced to pay dues."
The article points out that union workers earn 16.6% more than nonunion workers on average — roughly $10,000 a year. "Workers are looking at how well their employers are performing and wondering why they're not getting rewarded equally. For example, Google parent Alphabet recorded its fastest revenue growth rate since 2007 last year. Apple's margin has been steadily rising and the company closed 2021 with its biggest quarter ever for sales, at almost $124 billion....

The article also notes that official figures from October 1, 2021 through June 30 showed a 58% increase in official attempts to unionize. "Whether the organizing momentum spreads more widely across the economy may depend on how vocal and successful workers are at Starbucks, Apple and elsewhere."

The Washington Post reports on a "widely adopted, even codified" trend in recent months: people aren't coming in to their offices on Friday.

"The drop-off in office work, particularly on Fridays, has led coffee shops to reduce their hours, delis to rethink staffing and bars like Pat's Tap in Minneapolis to kick off happy hour earlier than ever — starting at 2 p.m." Just 30 percent of office workers swiped into work on Fridays in June, the least of any weekday, according to Kastle Systems, which provides building security services for 2,600 buildings nationwide. That's compared to 41 percent on Mondays, the day with the second-lowest turnout, and 50 percent on Tuesdays, when the biggest share of workers are in the office.

"It's becoming a bit of cultural norm: You know nobody else is going to the office on Friday, so maybe you'll work from home, too," said Peter Cappelli, director of the Center for Human Resources at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. "Even before the pandemic, people thought of Friday as a kind of blowoff day. And now there's a growing expectation that you can work from home to jump-start your weekend...."

Some start-ups and tech firms have begun doing away with Fridays altogether. Crowdfunding platform Kickstarter and online consignment shop ThredUp are among a small but growing number of firms moving to a four-day workweek that runs from Monday to Thursday. Executives at Bolt, a checkout technology company in San Francisco, began experimenting with no-work Fridays last summer and quickly realized they'd hit a winning formula. Employees were more productive than before, and came back to work on Mondays with new enthusiasm. In January, it switched to a four-day workweek for good.
"Managers were onboard, people kept hitting their goals," Bolt's head of employee experience tells the Post. "And they come back on Mondays energized and more engaged."

An adviser at the Society of Human Resource Management tells the Post that employers are trying new inducements to get people to return to offices on Fridays. "If you feed them, they will come. Food trucks, special catered events, ice cream socials, that's what's popular right now." And the Post adds that other employers have also tried wine carts, costume contests and karaoke sing-offs — "all aimed at getting workers to give up their couches for cubicles."

An anonymous reader shares a report: In the late 1990s, Yoshitaka Murayama made a name for himself among a subset of video game fans by creating and directing Suikoden, a series of Japanese roleplaying games (RPGs) that became beloved for their scope and depth. A catchy way to think of them is "Game of Thrones" meets Pokemon. But in 2002, as the third Suikoden game was finishing development, Murayama quit his job at the game publisher Konami Holdings and went off on his own. In the two decades that followed, he didn't work on many games of note, leaving fans to wonder what had become of him. Eventually Konami abandoned the Suikoden franchise, perhaps believing that RPGs weren't lucrative enough. In the early 2010s, players started asking Murayama: why not fund a new RPG on Kickstarter?

In the summer of 2020, Murayama finally answered fans' wishes. He raised 481.6 million yen (around $4.5 million at the time) from more than 46,000 backers, with a Kickstarter for Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, a spiritual successor to the Suikoden series. It became the No. 1 video game on Kickstarter that year. Getting to that point was a long journey, Murayama told me in a recent interview. He said he only started seriously considering a Kickstarter after meeting up with some of his old collaborators, such as artist Junko Kawano, at a concert for Suikoden music. Murayama was also driven by the success of Nintendo's Octopath Traveler, which has sold more than 2.5 million copies since its release in 2018. The audience for turn-based RPGs had been "shrinking," Murayama said, but Octopath Traveler proved that âoethere is a promising marketâ for games like his.

The Volla Phone 22, a new smartphone available for preorder via a Kickstarter campaign, is unlike any other smartphone on the market today in that it ships with a choice of the Android-based Volla OS or the Ubuntu Touch mobile Linux distribution. "It also supports multi-boot functionality, allowing you to install more than one operating system and choose which to run at startup," writes Liliputing's Brad Linder. Some of the hardware specs include a 6.3-inch FHD+ display, a MediaTek Helio G85 processor, 4GB of RAM, 128GB storage, 3.5mm audio jack and a microSD card reader. There's also a 48-megapixel main camera sensor and replaceable 4,500mAh battery. From the report: While Volla works with the folks at UBPorts to ensure its phones are compatible with Ubuntu Touch, the company develops the Android-based Volla OS in-house. It's based on Google's Android Open Source Project code, but includes a custom launcher, user interface, and set of apps with an emphasis on privacy. The Google Play Store is not included, as this is a phone aimed at folks who want to minimize tracking from big tech companies. Other Google apps and services like the Chrome web browser, Google Maps, Google Drive, and Gmail are also omitted. The upshot is that no user data is collected or stored by Volla, Google, or other companies unless you decide to install apps that track your data. Of course, that could make using the phone a little less convenient if you've come to rely on those apps, so the Volla Phone might not be the best choice for everyone.

Volla OS also has a built-in user-customizable firewall, an App Locker feature for disabling and hiding apps, and optional support for using the Hide.me VPN for anonymous internet usage. The source code for Volla OS is also available for anyone that wants to inspect the code. The operating system also has a custom user interface including a Springboard that allows you to quickly launch frequently-used apps by pressing a red dot for a list, or by starting to type in a search box for automatic suggestions such as placing a phone call, sending a text message, or opening a web page. You can also create notes or calendar events from the Springboard or send an encrypted message with Signal. The phone is expected to ship in June at an early bird price of about $408.

"Headline says it all," writes Slashdot reader segaboy81. "Lots of people have been looking forward to this Kickstarter for the Unihertz Titan Slim, but it is easily the thickest phone of 2022." Neowin's Dean Howell reacts to an unboxing video of Unihertz's Titan Slim, the successor to last year's Titan Pocket physical keyboard-equipped BlackBerry clone, writing: While Blackberry refugees have been clamoring for new PKB devices, they've been asking for them to be thin and sleek like the Blackberry of yesterday. We thought that's what we were getting with the announcement of the Titan Slim, but after yesterday's unboxing video by Adam over at TechOdyssey we know that's not the case at all. [...] Normally he would show how it compares to other devices, and I think this go 'round he was reticent to compare it directly to the Titan Pocket because if he did it would confirm what I think is true; the Titan Slim is not slim at all and it's every bit as think as the Titan Pocket.

The drama doesn't end there I'm afraid. There is a review embargo on this device, so there are a lot of details Adam didn't talk about, like performance characteristics. [...] New year, new phone, new CPU right? Wrong. I wondered what CPU the Titan Slim would ship with and it took less than a minute to figure out. I went over to Geekbench and found it had already been tested. Unfortunately, the Titan Slim will ship with the same CPU as last year's Titan Pocket. What's worse is the Helio P70 in the Titan Slim is comparable at best to the then-mid-range Snapdragon 660 of the 2018 Key2.

"The traditional idea of going to the office five days a week or working 9 to 5 may be dying," reports the Washington Post: Zoom, which many workplaces and workers relied on during the pandemic, is starting to allow its more than 6,000 workers to choose whether to work in the office, work remotely, or go hybrid, as in working remotely a certain number of days per week or month at their choosing. Bolt, a San Francisco-based e-commerce start-up boldly introduced a permanent four-day workweek for its nearly 600 employees. Workplace communications platform Slack is reimagining its office primarily as a gathering place for meetings and projects. And tech giants Amazon and Salesforce are allowing their employees to decide as a team when and where they should work, based on the projects at hand.

These approaches come as companies rethink workplace policies amid the fast spread of the omicron variant and the "Great Resignation," during which employers are finding it more difficult to retain talent. U.S. office occupancy dipped to about 28 percent during the third week of January, compared to 40 percent in November before the massive spread of the omicron variant, according to building security company Kastle Systems. Still, some employers see this as an opportunity to rethink the way employees have traditionally worked, opting for even more flexible and creative arrangements that are more likely to lure and retain workers....

Jennifer Christie [Bolt's chief people officer] said after piloting the policy last year, 91 percent of managers and 94 percent of employees wanted to continue. They also reported increased productivity and better work-life balance. Meanwhile, the start-up has been inundated with resumes and emails from people interested in working for the company, Christie said. "People want to be empowered and have autonomy to do work in a way that fits them," Christie said. "That's going to be where talent is attracted...."

The one thing the Kickstarter union workers agree on is the desire for the four-day workweek. "I'd be lying if I said I hadn't listened to some recruiters from places that already implemented a four-day workweek," said Dannel Jurado [a member of Kickstarter United, which is part of the Office and Professional Employees International Union].

Recently a New York Times headlined asked "Is the four-day work week finally within our grasp?" Kickstarter, Shake Shack and Unilever's New Zealand unit are among those that have experimented with the four-day workweek, or have announced plans to. And after an experiment in Iceland supported the idea that the system improves worker well-being without reducing overall output, a majority of the country's workers have now moved to shorter workweeks, or will gain the right to... Roughly 1% of Iceland's working population was involved in its trials of shorter workweeks for equal pay, which ran for several years starting in 2015.

"The trials were successful," concluded a recent research report on the experiment. "Participating workers took on fewer hours and enjoyed greater well-being, improved work-life balance and a better cooperative spirit in the workplace — all while maintaining existing standards of performance and productivity...." And the extra day off means fewer commuting days, which saves time and reduces environmental impact....

Proponents of four-day weeks say the key is to rein in meetings. "You have better discipline around meetings. You're a lot more thoughtful in how you use technology," said Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, author of "Shorter," a book about the four-day workweek. He also said that a shorter week requires workers to set aside time for focused work and refrain from email or other communications during that time.

"To paraphrase William Gibson, the four-day week is already here for most companies," said Pang, an organizational strategy consultant in Menlo Park, California. "It's buried under a whole bunch of rubble of outmoded practices and bad meetings. Once you clear that stuff away, then it turns out the four-day week is well within your grasp."
And now one commentator in Newsweek reports that 83% of U.S. workers favor a shorter work week. But there's also a business case for the change, since a Microsoft experiment with a four-day work week in Japan "led to a 40 percent improvement in productivity, as measured by sales per employee...." The strongest argument for a shorter work week is that it doesn't actually require a sacrifice. Although the average American works 8.8 hours a day, not much of this time is actually spent working. If a worker is in the office but isn't working, what is the purpose of them being there? Minutes spent chatting by the water cooler, checking social media and making snacks compound into hours that could be better spent elsewhere. As noted by the historian C. Northcote Parkinson, famous for "Parkinson's Law," work "expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." I think he's right.

Deadlines focus work, and focused work is better work. It's the quality, and not the quantity, of our work that matters.... As we near the post-COVID juncture, I believe it's time to refocus our sights on the forgotten promise of the industrial revolution — to finally help employees find a better work-life balance and actually increase business' productivity and bottom line at the same time. Four great work days are always better than five average days.
It's happening. "The coronavirus pandemic has sped up a transition into more flexible and diverse working hours around the world, opening up ways of working that were unthinkable just a few years ago," reports Reuters. (The traditional model of how we work has been broken," Meghana Reddy, vice president of video messaging service Loom, told the Reuters Next conference.")

And an article in Forbes reminds us that last month Britain's Atom Bank adopted a four-day week for most of its 430 employees, reducing working hours to 34 hours per week from 37.5 hours without reducing pay. "There's even talk at the congressional level: U.S. Rep. Mark Takano, a Democrat from California, introduced a bill in July to reduce the standard work week from 40 hours to 32. The bill has 13 co-sponsors...." The four-day work week will take hold because it embodies the spirit of our times, because workers demand it, and because businesses that implement it will thrive...

Years from now we will look back on our pre-pandemic work habits and lifestyles and wonder why we worked the way we did. We will cringe to recall how we sacrificed evenings and weekends and friendships and family to work all the time. We will ponder how we allowed ourselves to sink beneath relentless professional demands and digital distractions without even noticing we were drowning.

The four-day work week is just one of the corporate experiments that will define the life-work revolution and ultimately the future of work.

Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland writes: Mystery Science Theatre 3000 will be coming back in 2022 with thirteen new episodes, plus 12 additional shorts and 12 monthly live events. "And this time, we're doing it without a network," explains the web page for their successful comeback campaign on Kickstarter. "Season 13 will be released exclusively in MST3K's new online virtual theatre, THE GIZMOPLEX."

36,581 backers pledged $6,519,019 to fund their own dedicated MST3K venue online, and most contributors to their 2021 Kickstarter campaign received 2022 passes to the online theatre as a thank-you. Now through December, fans who want to buy or gift a 2022 pass can get them discounted to $95. (Normally'll they cost $120.)

Starting on March 4, 2022, assorted MST3K zanies and their puppet robots will be watching (and heckling) 12 carefully-chosen weird movies, including one 1970 Gamera movie that they haven't gotten to yet, a 1968 Italian movie about a professional wrestler called The Batwoman, and Jack Palance's 1979 film, HG Wells' The Shape of Things to Come. And series creator Joel Hodgson will return when they all watch the 2014 movie The Christmas Dragon. The Den of Geek site has all the details on the 13 movies (gleaned from last week's traditional "Turkey Day marathon" of fan-favorite episodes — this year broadcast on YouTube, Twitch, and various web pages and streaming apps).

But in addition there's also a live touring show that will take them all across America. Next week fans can catch shows in the midwestern U.S. — specifically Youngstown Ohio, Nashville Indiana, Madison Wisconsin, and Chicago — before the crew moves on to Salt Lake City, Reno, and Seattle. Then it's on to California — San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego — and then dozens of other major cities in the U.S. (Portland! Denver! Austin! Atlanta! Durham! Worcester! New York City!)

"We know that many of you are understandably concerned about COVID and the Delta variant. We are too," explains a special announcement on the tour's web site, promising the tour "will adhere to the same standards as touring Broadway shows in effect at the time of your performance... [E]very theater on the tour will have its own policies."
In 2008 the show's creator Joel Hodgson answered questions from Slashdot readers.

Long-time Slashdot reader TuringTest writes: The mixed AR/VR standalone headset Lynx R1, which is undergoing an already-funded Kickstarter campaign, got this week its first third-party hands-on review by independent reviewers Cas and Chary VR.

Check also the video that the company released yesterday demonstrating for the first time the combined color pass-through AR, VR and its incorporated Ultraleap hand-tracking capabilities of the device.

CmdrTaco writes: Long time Slashdot readers remember Samzenpus, who posted over 17,000 stories here, sadly crushing my record in the process! What you might NOT know is that he was frequently the Dungeon Master for D&D campaigns played by the original Slashdot crew, and for the last few years he has been applying these skills with fellow Slashdot editorial alum Chris DiBona to a Survival game called Fractured Veil. It's set in a post apocalyptic Hawaii with a huge world based on real map data to explore, as well as careful balance between PVP & PVE. I figured a lot of our old friends would love to help them meet their kickstarter goal and then help us build bases and murder monsters! The game is turning into something pretty great and I'm excited to see it in the wild!

Kickstarter announced Tuesday that it plans to experiment with a four-day work week in an effort to offer workers more flexibility and additional time to spend on creative pursuits. From a report: Lots of tech companies are planning to offer flexibility around where employees work post-pandemic. Now some companies are also rethinking when people work. Kickstarter plans next year to test a four-day work week with some or all of its employees, though details of that remain to be figured out, including whether all workers will have the same schedule. Dating app Bumble, meanwhile, says it's giving all employees this week off to allow a much-needed break. Kickstarter CEO Aziz Hasan told Axios that he had toyed with the notion of a four-day week in the past, but was motivated by the pandemic to actually give it a try. "What we've been all living through the last 18 months, you feel this compression on your professional life, your personal life," Hasan said. The idea of a four-day work week wasn't spurred by the company's ongoing collective bargaining negotiations, Hasan said. He added that the company's newly formed union has been supportive of the idea.

The Washington Post reports on a surge in crowdfunding campaigns for basic essentials like rent, food and bills: Sites like GoFundMe, Kickstarter or even Facebook allow people and businesses to establish a cause — or set up a page laying out why they (or someone they are raising the money for) need money, and what the cash will go toward. After demand spiked last year, GoFundMe in October formalized a new category specifically for rent, food and bills. More than $100 million had been raised at that time year-to-date for basic living expenses in tens of thousands of campaigns during 2020 — a 150 percent increase over 2019. Both Vancouver-based FundRazr and U.K. crowdfunding website GoGetFunding report similar, though smaller, trends for last year, as well as honeymoon sites PlumFund and HoneyFund.

But a year into the pandemic, some individual crowdfunding campaigns are reporting little success raising donations to cover basic expenses... Daryl Hatton, CEO and founder of FundRazr said when he browsed through the campaigns for basic expenses, most were getting little or no donations. "I saw a whole bunch of zeros," he said...

GoFundMe hasn't seen a slow-down on activity related to basic expense campaigns. It "continues at an elevated rate," company spokesperson Bobby Whithorne said... The monthly bills category is now one of GoFundMe's largest and has made up 13 percent of all new fundraisers since it was added in October, the company said. The campaigns range from people who have lost their jobs or been evicted to those who have suffered a health emergency and need help paying rent, and more. Meanwhile fundraisers for food in January spiked 45 percent higher than a year before, the company said. On Facebook, people raised $175 million for coronavirus-related fundraisers on the flagship site and Instagram between early March to late December last year, said Elizabeth Davis, a product manager on Facebook's charitable giving team.

GoFundMe makes money from many of these new campaigns it hosts and fosters — the company charges credit card processing fees, but primarily makes money from "tips" left on each donation. The tip level is automatically set at 12.5 percent of a donation, though donors can change the amount or decline to tip the company...

Despite the surge in crowdfunding, it doesn't replace other societal safety nets, experts said. GoFundMe's chief executive Tim Cadogan published an op-ed in USA Today in February, calling for more robust government programs to help people and insisting to Congress that GoFundMe "can't do your job for you."
The article also cites one research team's preliminary finding that more than 40% of coronavirus-related fundraisers on GoFundMe never received a single donation.

destinyland writes: Mystery Science Theater 3000 will be coming back — with a new home online. Though Netflix didn't pick them up for another season after 2019, "We still want to keep making new episodes," series creator Joel Hodgson explains in an online video on Kickstarter. (Also available through the URL MakeMoreMST3K.com.)

And with 12 days left to go, 18,969 online fans have already pledged $3,348,705, funding six new episodes...

But in addition the first $2 million funded the creation of the Gizmoplex, "our very own virtual online theatre," while the first stretch goal was also funded — the creation of MST3K apps for Android, iOS, and streaming services like AppleTV and Roku. "I'm tired of other people deciding if our show lives or dies," explains Crow T. Robot in the Kickstarter video. "I wanna do that." New host Jonah Heston adds, "If we want MST3K to keep going long-term, maybe networks aren't the most reliable option. Maybe it should be up to the fans to decide how long we keep going..."

Their next stretch goal of $4.4 million would fund three more episodes, but will also allow them to invite backers to the Gizmoplex for live monthly events, "for at least a year." And if they reach their goal of $5.5 million, they'll fund three more episodes — so an entire 12-episode season — as well as 12 short-subject films.

The ultimate hope is to host frequent live screenings, premieres, and community events in the Gizmoplex — while fans can even host their own MST3K watch parties whenever they want. And their Kickstarter page even suggests they might someday extend the Gizmoplex into virtual reality (accessible on computer and headsets).
I still remember how back in 2008 Joel Hodgson answered questions from Slashdot readers. "I've been a fan so long, I can't even remember when," posted CmdrTaco.

New submitter dkoneill writes: A soon-to-be-released, crowdfunded book based on the personal archives of Douglas Adams (author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, episodes of Doctor Who and other beloved science fiction), reveals that he occasionally found writing torturous. In a "General note to myself" the author states, "Writing isn't so bad really when you get through the worry. Forget about the worry, just press on. Don't be embarrassed about the bad bits. Don't strain at them." "Writing can be good...You can get pleasure out of it."

His sister Jane responded to the General note, "I love it, but I just wish he'd read it to himself more often. I think it [writing] was a tortuous process for him, not all the time, but when it was difficult for him it was really difficult." When stuck, the author would even tear down his own work. On another page of notes, he wrote, "Arthur Dent is a burk. He does not interest me. Ford Prefect is a burk. He does not interest me. Zaphod Beeblebrox is a burk. He does not interest me. Marvin is a burk. He does not interest me. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a burk. It does not interest me."

This week Protocol.com's "Source Code" newsletter described how startup founders could now bypass venture capitalists: Last fall, the the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission passed a new set of rules for "exempt offerings," which allow startups to raise funds by selling securities. The SEC acknowledged that its exempt offering rules had become "overly complex" and tried to make them simpler to understand. The new rules increase the amount of money a startup can raise through regulation crowdfunding, which works like ordinary Kickstarter-style crowdfunding but involves selling equity instead of products and thus comes with many more rules attached (though not nearly as many as would apply to your average public company). Reg CF, as it's known, used to allow a company to sell a maximum of only $1.07 million in securities every year. Starting Monday, that number jumped to $5 million a year.

The rules also allow startups to "test the waters," which means they can talk much more publicly about raising money without actually raising money.

These rule changes are probably going to make VCs crazy, since now there are easy ways to loop them out of the super-early fundraising that often brings the biggest windfalls.
They also note that Sahil Lavingia, the CEO of commerce platform Gumroad, just raised $5 million in new funding. "He's also hoping that this model — start with a lead investor who negotiates and does due diligence, then offer the same terms to the general public — becomes a go-to move for startups everywhere.

"It certainly worked for Gumroad. It hit $5 million in less than a day, with the money coming from 7,513 investors."

There's 29 hours left in a Kickstarter campaign to fund "an open source, Linux-based, highly modular, customizable portable computer kit that accommodates anything from a Raspberry Pi to a Ryzen x86 4x4 single-board computer and more," writes READY!100: Reminiscent of 1980s executive portable computers, the READY! 100 is fully modern with 12 input output ports and 4 antenna ports. Perfect for hackers, ham radio operators, and audio/video folks, it can even be used with external graphics cards.
Engadget hailed it as "a Raspberry Pi enclosure for cyberpunk enthusiasts." Thanks to their diminutive size and low-power consumption, single-board computers like the Raspberry Pi can come in all shapes and sizes. We've seen DIY enthusiasts like Guy Dupont put a $10 Raspberry Pi Zero W into the shell of a 2004 iPod Classic to create a device that can access Spotify. But few are as cool as this recent Kickstarter project we spotted from a Toronto-based company called Ready! Computer Corporation.

The company's Ready! Model 100 is essentially a case for your single-board computer that includes a mechanical keyboard, stereo speakers, a touchscreen display and enough I/O ports to connect almost anything you need. The enclosure allows you to fit an SBC that's about the size of a 4x4 Intel NUC board. Oh, and you can carry it around with a guitar strap.

Basically, it allows you to build the cyberdeck of your dreams.