There have been two announcements this week for cheap, accessible 3D scanning options that could be perfect for beginners! With 42 whole days to go on Kickstarter, a company called Occipital surmounted the $100,000 goal within 3.5 hours, with a current pledge of over $483,000. Occipital was always exclusive to software, but thankfully took a chance at hardware. It is called The Structure Sensor, starts at $329, its no ordinary scanner like the Makerbot Digitizer. This one actually attaches to your mobile device like iPad 4, scans whatever you want, and in a matter of minutes you’ve got all the data measurements needed to send-to-print.

Second announcement is the Rubicon, a low cost 3D scanner for only $199! It is so easily compared to the Digitizer because, besides its similar appearance, uses a camera, lasers and turntable to grab the measurements. The difference here, besides the 1200 dollars is the Rubicon can capture texture due to its 13 mp camera (Digitizer has 1.3). Additionally, full scans complete in 3 minutes versus Digitizer's 12. Rubicon cant technically, scan objects AS large but the creator says that the camera is movable to allow for larger objects. Also a crowd funding campaign on Indiegogo, with the initial hope to raise 25 grand, they are well over 47 thousand!

Is this the year of LINUX gaming? Are they finally gonna take the stage? Despite the current minuscule share of the market Linux has, the director of Valve said this week that this is could soon change. Despite the fact Linux gaming accounts for less than 1 percent of the market by any measure- including players, player minutes and revenue, Valve is trying to push Linux into living rooms by extending its steam distribution platform to hardware! It is very exciting. Both affordable and competitive, I hope I have more to tell you soon about hardware. Valve is doing its best. Finally, I run through some of my favorite tech inventions from the 1980s! These include the original Nintendo NES, Fuji's first disposable camera, the first Macintosh, and more! Also, an introduction to my new segment "What The Tech" expresses some confusion about some gadgets I read about this week that made little sense to me. Some devices are just strange.