They list my details that were leaked from the Sony Playstation Network hack a few years ago, long since changed all my passwords since then.

Obviously you can't just magic a games development studio out of thin air, but you already need to have something to pitch to publishers in order to get funding through traditional methods. The only real difference is that instead of pitching to publishers you're pitching directly to gamers. More traditional funding methods exist for initial backing to start any kind of business, not just games development.

There are a number of ambitious game projects funded this way, certainly way beyond the scale of "Flappy Bird"
Broken Age
Planetary Annihilation
Wasteland 2
Star Citizen

Design your game, create promotional materials, launch kickstarter for funds stating final product will be free.

Rinse, Repeat. Gamers get games, you get to eat and write free software

Ozone depletion, which is probably the most relevant example

Queue an over the air update from Tesla requiring the drivers seat belt to be engaged for the car to run.

Amazon's Mechanical Turk
Netflix Tagger

There's a couple that didn't exist a few decades ago, which are currently in the 'too hard to automate' category. They might not remain there forever, but these are arguably not skilled jobs, just normal information processing jobs that most desk jockeys would do well at.

Many people come here for the comments and intelligent discussion, but as of late the only comments are whining about the Slashdot Beta.

Because they don't have the captial to manufacture the mining equipment without pre-orders, and once people pay for pre-orders they are obliged to sell the completed device

However if I were them, I would run each completed device for a week or so for "Quality Testing", then package and ship the device to the customer.

Williams have already developed a vehicle based flywheel for use in hybrid race cars

If they can meet the safety regulations imposed by racing authorities then I am sure that they can be used safely on the road given enough development.

It's a bit of a silly statement really, additional monitoring towers that bolster the accuracy of GLONASS also increase the accuracy of weapon systems that rely on GLONASS

Whilst I can imagine the utillity of autonomous cars, I take solace in the fact that nobody would ever buy an autonomous motorcycle

Maybe he should put encrypted copies on bittorrent then.

Good luck to the CIA trying to track down millions of copies all over the world

You're missing the point, a person holding a smartphone controls what the viewer sees, a robotic system gives the viewer control of what they see which adds to the immersion.

Done right the experience from the viewer should be akin to a first person videogame, and combined with the likes of the Occulus Rift headset it could be a game changer.

Schmidt with Google Glass?

The only good news out of all of this is the possibillity of new Bioware KOTOR games