The idea of Kickstarter first formed in the mind of Perry Chen in 2001. A native New Yorker, Chen was 25, living in New Orleans and working as a musician. He wanted to bring a pair of DJs he loved down to perform during Jazz Fest. He sorted out a venue, organised things with their management, but in the end the event didn't happen – Chen didn't have the funds to pay for the show if not enough people turned up. In his frustration, a thought occurred to him: "What if people could go to a website and pledge to buy tickets for a show? And if enough money was pledged, they would be charged and the show would happen. Over the years that followed, Chen held on to that simple idea. He moved back to New York in 2005, still more intent on making music than starting an internet company – he had no background in technology – but the thought wouldn't go away. He became friends with a music journalist, Yancey Strickler, who got sold on the idea, too. They talked about it with, Charles Adler, a designer and DJ, and the three of them formulated ideas and spoke to mates of mates who knew code or to people who might help fund such a thing. Eventually, in April 2009, eight years after the idea had first come to Chen, the three of them launched their website and waited at their laptops to see if other people thought it was a good idea too. In the first few days, a few emails trickled in, from people pitching ideas, wondering how the thing might work. And then, after a couple of weeks, a young singer-songwriter from Athens, Georgia, launched a project to fund her album, Allison Weiss Was Right All Along. "My name is Allison Weiss and I'm recording a new EP this summer.

Ever since I entered college and learned the word'fashion' did not mean shopping at retailers such as Abercrombie and Fitch and American Eagle (the early-mid 2000s were a weird time, okay?), I became obsessed with Nordstrom. The clothes, the bags, the shoes, the makeup--it was all too perfect. Then I discovered the customer service was better than all of those departments combined, and I never looked back. After shopping at Nordstrom for years, in store and online, I know pretty much just about everything that is sold at the store. But is it helpful for you?

The 20 best gifts for mom that she'll actually want (Photo: Reviewed.com) If you make a purchase by clicking one of our links, we may earn a small share of the revenue. However, our picks and opinions are independent from USA TODAY's newsroom and any business incentives. Of all the people you shop for, your mom can be the most challenging. When you ask her what she wants, she'll probably say, "I don't want anything, thanks," and besides, "You shouldn't spend your money" on her.

Nissan used the ProPILOT technology used in its semi-autonomous vehicles to build "self-driving" slippers. The slippers feature a motor and wheels that sink into the sole once stepped into. The sandals are currently being used at the ProPILOT Park Ryokan, a hotel in Japan, for its guest. Guest are expected to take off their shoes in the lobby and put on the slippers, which can be returned at the touch of a button. For more videos, subscribe to Mashable Daily: http://on.mash.to/SubscribeNews

Nissan has developed a new range of self-parking slippers. Using the same ProPilot Park system that is in Nissan's self-driving cars, the'smart' shoes have in-built sensors, a motor and a concealed set of wheels. Using the same ProPilot Park system that is in Nissan's self-driving cars, the'smart' shoes have in-built sensors, a motor and a concealed set of wheels. Whilst the space-age lounge wear may appeal to both the clean-freaks and the lazy, it sadly will not be available to customers. Nissan created the prototype's to show-off the technology that it is creating for its self-driving cars.

Japan's Nissan Motor Co is displaying its self-parking slippers at its corporate headquarters in Yokohama, as Jim Drury reports. A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. Japan's Nissan Motor Co is displaying its self-parking slippers at its corporate headquarters in Yokohama, as Jim Drury reports.

Old traditions are constantly being updated with new technology, and one ryokan (guesthouse) is making use of automated driving technology to offer the latest in hands-free hospitality -- self-driving slippers. Nissan Motor Co. has developed a system for slippers to'park' themselves at the entrance of the traditional inn at the push of a button, ready for guests to use upon arrival. Each slipper is equipped with two tiny wheels, a motor and sensors to'drive' across the wooden lobby floor using Nissan's ProPilot Park technology. The automaker uses the same technology in the latest version of its all-battery electric Leaf vehicle. High-tech sensors and cameras allow the car to locate and back into parking spots without any driver input.

The specification of complex motion goals through temporal logics is increasingly favored in robotics to narrow the gap between task and motion planning. A major limiting factor of such logics, however, is their Boolean satisfaction condition. To relax this limitation, we introduce a method for quantifying the satisfaction of co-safe linear temporal logic specifications, and propose a planner that uses this method to synthesize robot trajectories with the optimal satisfaction value. The method assigns costs to violations of specifications from user-defined proposition costs. These violation costs define a distance to satisfaction and can be computed algorithmically using a weighted automaton. The planner utilizes this automaton and an abstraction of the robotic system to construct a product graph that captures all possible robot trajectories and their distances to satisfaction. Then, a plan with the minimum distance to satisfaction is generated by employing this graph as the high-level planner in a synergistic planning framework. The efficacy of the method is illustrated on a robot with unsatisfiable specifications in an office environment.