Why is Kickstarter letting a hologram “scam” raise $250k?


Hmmmmm... Very interesting. But I'm sure this isn't going to be the first and last time KS let's scams like these through due to getting a chunk of the final cut, right?
 
Srsly guys? Some ninny is going to link this thread as 'evidence' to steer clear if we have to do a kickstarter...


Sarcasm may be the lowest form of wit, but you would be surprised how dense some people can be.
 
You make a disappointingly good point. Thank you.

FaeMinx is right, no fun guys. When it comes to kickstarter we should remain profesional, at least until the Pyra is funded.
 
You make a disappointingly good point. Thank you.


FaeMinx is right, no fun guys. When it comes to kickstarter we should remain profesional, at least until the Pyra is funded.
Po-fessional? Some people take kickstarter projects that they back so seriously. I mean if I drop 10 dollars on a 2d game then I can cut my losses if the project does not pan out.

It's ridiculous how quickly some people cry scam and demand refunds, upon the project encountering the slightest delay or minor setback. I'm talking about 10 dollars.

There's a lot of self entitled whiners in netland.
 
It's ridiculous how quickly some people cry scam and demand refunds, upon the project encountering the slightest delay or minor setback.
It is. And it's ridiculous how many "news sources" will give them a platform to scream about their entitlement. We know EvilDragon isn't running a scam, but there's no reason to give anyone with only half a brain a reason to think otherwise and start spreading bad publicity.
 
I think people ripping into this project perhaps are doing so  unfairly. Judging by this reply by h+tech, it seems it could very well be real and legit:

 
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Whats not real, it seems to be a simple solution .  And that looked like a real demo.   Not sure what the issue is to be honest.
 
No binocular 3d, as it's only tracking the single iphone - it's not producing a distinct image for each eye as a true hologram would, so you don't get the eye convergence cues about the depth of points.  Likewise you don't get cues about focus - a true hologram isn't projected from a flat screen, so as you focus on different points in the object, other points will come in and out of focus.  The image you see won't look 3D until you move around it, and even then it won't look quite right.

Basically, you're better off with a 3D screen like on a 3DS probably, or an oculus rift type thing - that at least gives you convergence cues.  And it makes it clear it's designed for a single user; this device can't produce separate images for different users, yet the way the stand is set up makes it look like it's designed as a centerpiece multiple people can walk around to me.
 
To all you guys defending this as a non-scam, did you read all the articles on it? Here's the full series on medium:

https://medium.com/@sableraph/how-to-sell-a-19th-century-parlor-trick-as-a-3d-holographic-display-c12a861cb8bf

https://medium.com/@sableraph/h-tech-responds-to-the-holoscam-accusations-regarding-their-3d-holographic-experience-6bd4a70d7d9e

https://medium.com/@sableraph/is-the-holus-3d-hologram-the-biggest-scam-in-the-history-of-kickstarter-6e86dd5bde7d

There might be some confusion because they removed the most misleading videos and claims from their Kickstarter, but it was done silently. By that point the project had already received several times its funding goal (it actually received over $200k in the first day) and over 80% what it would receive in total. Most people who pledged wouldn't be carefully watching the campaign page to see if it changed.

Now since then they've posted a video series explaining in pretty good detail what the product actually does and what the limitations are (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1314339634/holus-the-interactive-tabletop-holographic-display/posts/1276329) I have no doubt that they're sincere about their product and excited about their research but they still did things in violation of Kickstarter's rules (and common expectations of fair advertising) and they should be called out on it.

As usual the real problem is with Kickstarter. They refuse to take the appropriate action, which would be to cancel the KS before it's funded and make them start a new one without misleading content. This is actually pretty generous considering the project did some very unambiguously bad things, like removing exposing comments (although they've stopped doing this) and allowing people who are affiliated to post praising the project w/o disclosure.

I don't like the idea that the mods should be blindly protecting or defending KS on this site by censoring threads like this. Make people research Pyra and gain confidence that it will be a safe pledge despite KS's many problems, don't whitewash them.
 
My only comment was that it didn't seem like a scam since they clearly outline how the product works in the Kickstarter and also the demo looked like a real device.  If that was changed later as Exophase has pointed out, and initially they had misleading info, then yeah , I can see that being a problem.  I wasn't aware they had done that.   

That said, I did notice some comments posted about it seemed to be coming from people affiliated with the project.  So the comment about them praising their own project in the comments comes as no surprise actually - which is pretty bad

I also did comes across this , seems you can make a similar thing for about $1- minus their important third step which provides perspective tracking   Seems a lot have people have built one to sit on an ipad also

It is interesting that people who have created just the pyramid peppers ghost model also call their setup a hologram, and that's without the active perspective tracking/display - so hmm. 

https://www.youtube.com/embed/UFhhIOaGW7U?feature=oembed
 
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