25 Best General, Technology & Engineering Books
General, Technology & Engineering is a popular category for many book lovers. Our team at Speechify has curated a list of the top General, Technology & Engineering audiobooks everyone must read.
See the top 25 General, Technology & Engineering audiobooks below.
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Silicon
- By: Federico Faggin
- Narrator: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 9 hours 46 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2021
- Language: English
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4.29(28 ratings)
4.29(28 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USD“As soon as she heard me enter, Elvia awoke from a light sleep that had overcome her as she anxiously waited: ‘How did it go?’ Excited, I exclaimed: ‘It works!’ We embraced, almost overwhelmed with feelings of euphoria“As soon as she heard me enter, Elvia awoke from a light sleep that had overcome her as she anxiously waited: ‘How did it go?’ Excited, I exclaimed: ‘It works!’ We embraced, almost overwhelmed with feelings of euphoria and happiness, aware that something epochal had happened. On that cold January night of 1971, the world’s first microprocessor was born!”
The creation of the microprocessor launched the digital age. The key technology allowing unprecedented integration, and the design of the world’s first microprocessor, the Intel 4004, were the achievement of Federico Faggin. Shrinking an entire computer onto a tiny and inexpensive piece of silicon would come to define our daily lives, imbuing myriad devices and everyday objects with computational intelligence.
In Silicon, internationally recognized inventor and entrepreneur Federico Faggin chronicles his “four lives”: his formative years in war-torn Northern Italy, his pioneering work in American microelectronics, his successful career as a high-tech entrepreneur, and his more recent explorations into the mysteries of consciousness. In this heartfelt memoir, Faggin paints vivid anecdotes, steps readers through society-changing technological breakthroughs, and shares personal insights, as each of his lives propels the next.
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Steve Jobs
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrator: Dylan Baker
- Length: 25 hours 4 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2011
- Language: English
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4.16(1134447 ratings)
4.16(1134447 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.95 USD2012 Audie Award Finalist for Audiobook of the YearWalter Isaacson’s “enthralling” (The New Yorker) worldwide bestselling biography of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs.Based on more than forty interviews with Steve Jobs conducted over2012 Audie Award Finalist for Audiobook of the Year
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Walter Isaacson’s “enthralling” (The New Yorker) worldwide bestselling biography of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs.
Based on more than forty interviews with Steve Jobs conducted over two years–as well as interviews with more than 100 family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues–Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.
At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in 21st century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.
Although Jobs cooperated with the author, he asked for no control over what was written. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.
Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple’s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.
Steve Jobs is the inspiration for the movie of the same name starring Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, and Jeff Daniels, directed by Danny Boyle with a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin. -
Steve Jobs
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrator: Dylan Baker
- Length: 9 hours 4 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2011
- Language: English
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4.16(1134447 ratings)
4.16(1134447 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.95 USD2012 Audie Award Finalist for Audiobook of the YearWalter Isaacson’s “enthralling” (The New Yorker) worldwide bestselling biography of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs.Based on more than forty interviews with Steve Jobs conducted over2012 Audie Award Finalist for Audiobook of the Year
... Read more
Walter Isaacson’s “enthralling” (The New Yorker) worldwide bestselling biography of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs.
Based on more than forty interviews with Steve Jobs conducted over two years–as well as interviews with more than 100 family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues–Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.
At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in 21st century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.
Although Jobs cooperated with the author, he asked for no control over what was written. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.
Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple’s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.
Steve Jobs is the inspiration for the movie of the same name starring Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, and Jeff Daniels, directed by Danny Boyle with a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin. -
Return of the Primitive
- By: Ayn Rand
- Narrator: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 13 hours 9 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2009
- Language: English
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4.13(656 ratings)
4.13(656 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0022.95 USDIn the 1960s and early ’70s, the most prominent, vocal cultural movement was the New Left: a movement that condemned America and everything it stood for: individualism, material wealth, science, technology, capitalism. While the New LeftIn the 1960s and early ’70s, the most prominent, vocal cultural movement was the New Left: a movement that condemned America and everything it stood for: individualism, material wealth, science, technology, capitalism.
While the New Left achieved limited political success, it brought about vast cultural changes that remain with us to this day. The reason is that while its representatives faced some political opposition, they faced little-to-no fundamental intellectual opposition. Ayn Rand was the exception. In her essays from this period, anthologized in The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, she opposed the New Left as no one else did. The audience of the book, she wrote, is “all those who are concerned about college students and about the state of modern education” and who are seeking “a voice of reason to turn to.”
In her essays, Ayn Rand identified the essential evils of the New Left and their cause. Where most viewed the New Left and its violent college protests, its worship of untouched nature, and its orgiastic mob celebrations as some sort of inexplicable, youthful rebellion against the “establishment,” Ayn Rand identified that these “rebels” were in fact dutiful, consistent practitioners of the ideas taught to them by their teachers.
Return of the Primitive is an expanded edition of The New Left. It features the entire contents of the original edition authorized by Ayn Rand, plus two of her other essays, “Racism” and “Global Balkanization,” which are highly relevant to today’s campuses and world. Additionally, it features three essays written by Peter Schwartz after her death, analyzing some of the ideologies that the New Left helped spawn, such as multiculturalism and environmentalism.
For those who seek to understand the state of American culture today, Return of the Primitive is required reading.
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The End of Ownership
- By: Aaron Perzanowski
- Narrator: Richard Powers
- Length: 10 hours 2 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2016
- Language: English
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4.07(110 ratings)
4.07(110 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDIf you buy a book at the bookstore, you own it. You can take it home, scribble in the margins, put in on the shelf, lend it to a friend, or sell it at a garage sale. But is the same thing true for the e-books or other digital goods you buy?If you buy a book at the bookstore, you own it. You can take it home, scribble in the margins, put in on the shelf, lend it to a friend, or sell it at a garage sale. But is the same thing true for the e-books or other digital goods you buy? Retailers and copyright holders argue that you don’t own those purchases, you merely license them. That means your e-book vendor can delete the book from your device without warning or explanation–as Amazon deleted Orwell’s 1984 from the Kindles of surprised readers several years ago. These readers thought they owned their copies of 1984–until, it turned out, they didn’t. In The End of Ownership, Aaron Perzanowski and Jason Schultz explore how notions of ownership have shifted in the digital marketplace, and make an argument for the benefits of personal property.
Of course, e-books, cloud storage, streaming, and other digital goods offer users convenience and flexibility. But, as Perzanowski and Schultz warn, consumers should be aware of the trade-offs involving user constraints, permanence, and privacy. The rights of private property are clear, but few people manage to read their end user agreements. Perzanowski and Schultz argue that introducing aspects of private property and ownership into the digital marketplace would offer both legal and economic benefits. But more importantly, it would affirm our sense of self-direction and autonomy. If we own our purchases, we are free to make whatever lawful use of them we please. Technology need not constrain our freedom; it can also empower us.
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The Evolution of Technology
- By: the Speech Resource Company
- Narrator: Robert Wikstrom
- Length: 9 hours 30 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2018
- Language: English
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4(1 ratings)
4(1 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDIn a short period of time, technology has exploded in the world market to a point where many cannot imagine a life without smartphones, tablets, and computers. With each new upgrade, technology compounds existing technologies to create somethingIn a short period of time, technology has exploded in the world market to a point where many cannot imagine a life without smartphones, tablets, and computers. With each new upgrade, technology compounds existing technologies to create something better than what was previously used before. Included are speeches from technical innovators, executives in the field of technology, developers, prognosticators, and others.
Produced by the Speech Resource Company and fully narrated by Robert Wikstrom
Martin Cooper (cell phone), MotorolaJ. Presper Eckert (digital computer), ENIAC/UNIVACBill Gates, MicrosoftPaul Allen, MicrosoftSteve Ballmer, MicrosoftSatya Nadella, MicrosoftSteve Jobs, AppleSteve Wozniak, AppleTim Cook, AppleSir Tim Berners Lee, World Wide WebJeff Bezos, AmazonSergey Brin & Larry Page, GoogleEric Schmidt, Google/AlphabetMarissa Mayer, Yahoo/GoogleMark Zuckerberg, FacebookSheryl Sandberg, FacebookSafra Catz, OracleJack Dorsey, TwitterJeremy Stoppelman, YelpSanjay Mehrotra, MicronSusan Wojcicki, YouTubeBrian Chesky, AirBnBLarry Ellison, OraclePeter Thiel, PayPalGinni Rometty, IBM
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The End of Craving
- By: Mark Schatzker
- Narrator: Gibson Frazier
- Length: 6 hours 45 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2021
- Language: English
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3.99(696 ratings)
3.99(696 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.99 USDThe international bestseller from award-winning writer Mark Schatzker that reveals how our dysfunctional relationship with food began–and how science is leading us back to healthier living and eating.For the last fifty years, we have beenThe international bestseller from award-winning writer Mark Schatzker that reveals how our dysfunctional relationship with food began–and how science is leading us back to healthier living and eating.
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For the last fifty years, we have been fighting a losing war on food. We have cut fat, reduced carbs, eliminated sugar, and attempted every conceivable diet only to find that eighty-eight million American adults are prediabetic, more than a hundred million have high blood pressure, and nearly half now qualify as obese. The harder we try to control what we eat, the unhealthier we become. Why?
Mark Schatzker has spent his career traveling the world in search of the answer. Now, in The End of Craving, he poses the profound question: What if the key to nutrition and good health lies not in resisting the primal urge to eat but in understanding its purpose?
Beginning in the mountains of Europe and the fields of the Old South, Schatzker embarks on a quest to uncover the lost art of eating and living well. Along the way, he visits brain scanning laboratories and hog farms, and encounters cultural oddities and scientific paradoxes–northern Italians eat what may be the world’s most delicious cuisine, yet are among the world’s thinnest people; laborers in southern India possess an inborn wisdom to eat their way from sickness to good health. Schatzker reveals how decades of advancements in food technology have turned the brain’s drive to eat against the body, placing us in an unrelenting state of craving. Only by restoring the relationship between nutrition and the pleasure of eating can we hope to lead longer and happier lives.
Combining cutting-edge science and ancient wisdom, The End of Craving is an urgent and radical investigation that “charts a roadmap not just for healthy eating, but for joyous eating, too” (Dan Barber, New York Times bestselling author of The Third Plate). -
The Shallows
- By: Nicholas Carr
- Narrator: Richard Powers
- Length: 10 hours 6 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2010
- Language: English
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3.89(16582 ratings)
3.89(16582 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USD“Is Google making us stupid?” When Nicholas Carr posed that question in an Atlantic Monthly cover story, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of“Is Google making us stupid?” When Nicholas Carr posed that question in an Atlantic Monthly cover story, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: as we enjoy the Internet’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply?
Now, Carr expands his argument into the most compelling exploration yet published of the Internet’s intellectual and cultural consequences. Weaving insights from philosophy, neuroscience, and history into a rich narrative, The Shallows explains how the Internet is rerouting our neural pathways, replacing the subtle mind of the book reader with the distracted mind of the screen watcher. A gripping story of human transformation played out against a backdrop of technological upheaval, The Shallows will forever alter the way we think about media and our minds.
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Red Star over Hollywood
- By: Ronald Radosh
- Narrator: Jeff Riggenbach
- Length: 10 hours 19 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2010
- Language: English
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3.86(43 ratings)
3.86(43 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDUntil now, Hollywood’s political history has been dominated by a steady stream of films and memoirs decrying the nightmare of the Red Scare and how it victimized political innocents. But Ronald and Allis Radosh tell for the first time theUntil now, Hollywood’s political history has been dominated by a steady stream of films and memoirs decrying the nightmare of the Red Scare and how it victimized political innocents. But Ronald and Allis Radosh tell for the first time the “backstory” behind this myth. They show how the Soviet Comintern targeted the film capital in the late 1920s, taking us inside the cells and discussion groups that Communist Party members formed, the guilds and unions they tried to take over, and the studios they aimed to influence. The authors demonstrate that many of the screenwriters who later became part of the Hollywood Ten in fact succeeded in using film as a propaganda medium on behalf of the Soviet cause. While others were lionizing them as blameless victims of American nativism and paranoia, the Hollywood Reds themselves were beset by doubts and disagreements about their disloyalty to America, and their own treatment by the Communist Party. Abandoned by their old CP allies, they faced the blacklist alone.
Getting behind the denial and apologetics, Ronald and Allis Radosh tell the real story of one of the most discussed but least understood episodes in our political history, whose long half-life continues to influence the equally turbulent cultural politics of today.
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My Robot Gets Me
- By: Carla Diana
- Length: 6 hours 9 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: May 04, 2021
- Language: English
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3.83(23 ratings)
3.83(23 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.99 USDYour relationships with your “smart” products are about to get a lot more personal. Think how commonplace it is now for people to ask Siri for the weather forecast, deploy Roomba to clean their homes, or summon Alexa to turn on theYour relationships with your “smart” products are about to get a lot more personal.
Think how commonplace it is now for people to ask Siri for the weather forecast, deploy Roomba to clean their homes, or summon Alexa to turn on the lights. The “smart home” market will reach well over $100 billion in the next five years on the promise of products that are truly integrated with our cooking, cleaning, entertainment, security, and hygiene habits.
But the reality is, these first-generation “smart” products aren’t very smart–yet. We’re clearly seeing only the tip of the iceberg in terms of capability and how such products can enhance our lives. How do we take it to the next level?
In a word, design–and more specifically, social design. In this fascinating and instructive book, leading product design expert Carla Diana describes how new technology is allowing designers to humanize consumer products in delightfully subtle ways. Showcasing vivid examples of social design principles such as ” product presence,” “object expression,” and “interaction intelligence,” we see how inventive uses of light, sound, and movement can evoke human responses to even the most mundane products. Diana offers clear guidelines and takeaways for conceptualizing, building, and optimizing products using such methods as bodystorming, scenario storyboarding, video prototyping, behavior charting, and more.
My Robot Gets Me provides keen insights and practical advice to anyone interested or involved in the burgeoning smart marketplace, from product designers and developers to managers and venture capitalists.
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The Profitable Hobby Farm
- By: Sarah Beth Aubrey
- Narrator: Rachel Dulude
- Length: 9 hours 50 minutes
- Publisher: Dreamscape Media
- Publish date: July 21, 2020
- Language: English
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3.74(131 ratings)
3.74(131 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.99 USDNo experience in farming? No problem! The Profitable Hobby Farm gives you all the tools you need to launch a thriving hobby-farm business. Based on the author’s expert guidance and the motivating experiences of other small farmers, it showsNo experience in farming? No problem! The Profitable Hobby Farm gives you all the tools you need to launch a thriving hobby-farm business. Based on the author’s expert guidance and the motivating experiences of other small farmers, it shows you how to blend strategy, marketing, and money management in order to prosper. The Profitable Hobby Farm provides sound, friendly start-up advice on a variety of topics essential to making an initial foray into a local-foods venture. A supplemental PDF is included with this audiobook.
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Nano Comes to Life
- By: Sonia Contera
- Length: 7 hours 41 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: November 05, 2019
- Language: English
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3.74(37 ratings)
3.74(37 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.99 USDThe nanotechnology revolution that will transform human health and longevity Nano Comes to Life opens a window onto the nanoscale?the infinitesimal realm of proteins and DNA where physics and cellular and molecular biology meet?and introducesThe nanotechnology revolution that will transform human health and longevity Nano Comes to Life opens a window onto the nanoscale?the infinitesimal realm of proteins and DNA where physics and cellular and molecular biology meet?and introduces readers to the rapidly evolving nanotechnologies that are allowing us to manipulate the very building blocks of life. Sonia Contera gives an insider’s perspective on this new frontier, revealing how nanotechnology enables a new kind of multidisciplinary science that is poised to give us control over our own biology, our health, and our lives. Drawing on her perspective as one of today’s leading researchers in the field, Contera describes the exciting ways in which nanotechnology makes it possible to understand, interact with, and manipulate biology?such as by designing and building artificial structures and even machines at the nanoscale using DNA, proteins, and other biological molecules as materials. In turn, nanotechnology is revolutionizing medicine in ways that will have profound effects on our health and longevity, from nanoscale machines that can target individual cancer cells and deliver drugs more effectively, to nanoantibiotics that can fight resistant bacteria, to the engineering of tissues and organs for research, drug discovery, and transplantation. The future will bring about the continued fusion of nanotechnology with biology, physics, medicine, and cutting-edge fields like robotics and artificial intelligence, ushering us into a new “transmaterial era.” As we contemplate the power, advantages, and risks of accessing and manipulating our own biology, Contera offers insight and hope that we may all share in the benefits of this revolutionary research.
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Telecosm
- By: George Gilder
- Narrator: Jeff Riggenbach
- Length: 11 hours 13 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2010
- Language: English
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3.66(141 ratings)
3.66(141 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0020.95 USDThe computer age is over. After a global run of thirty years, it has given birth to the age of the telecosm–the world enabled and defined by new communications technology. To seek the key to great wealth and to understand the bewildering waysThe computer age is over. After a global run of thirty years, it has given birth to the age of the telecosm–the world enabled and defined by new communications technology. To seek the key to great wealth and to understand the bewildering ways that high tech is restructuring our lives, look not to chip speed but to bandwidth. Bandwidth is exploding, and its abundance is the most important social and economic fact of our time.
George Gilder is one of the great technological visionaries, famous for understanding and predicting complex technologies as well as for putting it all together in a soaring view of why things change and what it means for our daily lives. He foresaw the power of fiber optics and wireless networks, the decline of the telephone regime, and the explosion of handheld computers; now, he brings you the bible of the new age of communications.
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Rockets and Ray Guns
- By: Andrew May
- Narrator: Grover Gardner
- Length: 8 hours 21 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2021
- Language: English
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3.6(14 ratings)
3.6(14 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDThe Cold War saw scientists in East and West racing to create amazing new technologies, the like of which the world had never seen. Yet not everyone was taken by surprise. From super-powerful atomic weapons to rockets and space travel, readers ofThe Cold War saw scientists in East and West racing to create amazing new technologies, the like of which the world had never seen. Yet not everyone was taken by surprise. From super-powerful atomic weapons to rockets and space travel, readers of science fiction (SF) had seen it all before.
Sometimes reality lived up to the SF vision, at other times it didn’t. The hydrogen bomb was as terrifyingly destructive as anything in fiction, while real-world lasers didn’t come close to the promise of the classic SF ray gun. Nevertheless, when the scientific Cold War culminated in the Strategic Defense Initiative of the 1980s, it was so science-fictional in its aspirations that the media dubbed it “Star Wars.”
This entertaining account, offering a plethora of little known facts and insights from previously classified military projects, shows how the real-world science of the Cold War followed in the footsteps of SF–and how the two together changed our perception of both science and scientists, paving the way for the world we live in today.
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Play All
- By: Clive James
- Narrator: Clive Chafer
- Length: 4 hours 47 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2016
- Language: English
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3.59(318 ratings)
3.59(318 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0016.95 USDTelevision and TV viewing are not what they once were–and that’s a good thing, according to award-winning author and critic Clive James. Since serving as television columnist for the London Observer from 1972 to 1982, James has witnessedTelevision and TV viewing are not what they once were–and that’s a good thing, according to award-winning author and critic Clive James. Since serving as television columnist for the London Observer from 1972 to 1982, James has witnessed a radical change in content, format, and programming and in the very manner in which television is watched. Here he examines this unique cultural revolution, providing a brilliant, eminently entertaining analysis of many of the medium’s most notable twenty-first-century accomplishments and their not-always-subtle impact on modern society–including such acclaimed serial dramas as Breaking Bad, The West Wing, Mad Men, and The Sopranos, as well as the comedy 30 Rock.
With intelligence and wit, James explores a television landscape expanded by cable and broadband and profoundly altered by the advent of Netflix, Amazon, and other “cord-cutting” platforms that have helped to usher in a golden age of unabashed binge-watching.
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50 Digital Ideas You Really Need to Know
- By: Tom Chatfield
- Narrator: Kerry Shale
- Length: 7 hours 26 minutes
- Publisher: Mobius
- Publish date: October 15, 2013
- Language: English
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3.53(52 ratings)
3.53(52 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0015.0 USDWe are in the throes of a technological and cultural revolution, yet the rapid pace of change makes it difficult to understand what’s going on. 50 Digital Ideas You Really Need to Know provides a clear path through the misinformation... Read more
We are in the throes of a technological and cultural revolution, yet the rapid pace of change makes it difficult to understand what’s going on. 50 Digital Ideas You Really Need to Know provides a clear path through the misinformation surrounding the technologies that are transforming the world.Leading technology writer Tom Chatfield provides a sure-footed guide to the seminal digital phenomena of our time–from the basic browsers that we use to surf the web, to the implications for our own privacy. From plumbing the depths of the deep web that represents well over 99 percent of the internet and remains inaccessible to most search engines, to digital distribution that threatens to sweep away entire industries, this is an indispensable road map for our journey to a digital future.
(P)2011 Quercus Editions Ltd
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The Numerati
- By: Stephen Baker
- Narrator: Richard Powers
- Length: 7 hours 54 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2008
- Language: English
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3.44(1227 ratings)
3.44(1227 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0016.95 USDEvery day, we produce loads of data about ourselves simply by living in the modern world: we click web pages, flip channels, drive through automatic toll booths, shop with credit cards, and make cell phone calls. Now, in one of the greatestEvery day, we produce loads of data about ourselves simply by living in the modern world: we click web pages, flip channels, drive through automatic toll booths, shop with credit cards, and make cell phone calls. Now, in one of the greatest undertakings of the twenty-first century, a savvy group of mathematicians and computer scientists is beginning to sift through this data to dissect us and map out our next steps. Their goal? To manipulate our behavior–what we buy, how we vote–without our even realizing it. In this tour de force of original reporting and analysis, journalist Stephen Baker provides us with a fascinating guide to the world we’re all entering–and to the people controlling that world. The Numerati have infiltrated every realm of human affairs, profiling us as workers, shoppers, patients, voters, potential terrorists–even lovers. The implications are vast. Our privacy evaporates. Our bosses can monitor and measure our every move–then reward or punish us. Politicians can find the swing voters among us. It can sound scary. But the Numerati can also work on our behalf, diagnosing an illness before we’re aware of the symptoms or even helping us find our soul mate. Surprising, enlightening, and deeply relevant, The Numerati shows how a powerful new endeavor–the mathematical modeling of humanity–will transform every aspect of our lives.
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Where’s My Jetpack?
- By: Daniel H. Wilson
- Narrator: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 3 hours 41 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2006
- Language: English
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3.41(614 ratings)
3.41(614 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0011.95 USDIt’s the twenty-first century and let’s be honest–things are a little disappointing. Despite every World’s Fair prediction and the advertisements in comic books, we are not living the future we were promised. By now, life wasIt’s the twenty-first century and let’s be honest–things are a little disappointing. Despite every World’s Fair prediction and the advertisements in comic books, we are not living the future we were promised. By now, life was supposed to be a fully automated, atomic-powered, germ-free Utopia, a place where a grown man could wear a velvet spandex unitard and not be laughed at. Where are the ray guns, the flying cars, and the hoverboards that we expected? What happened to our moon colonies and servant robots?
InWhere’s My Jetpack?roboticist Daniel H. Wilson takes a hilarious look at the future we imagined for ourselves.You will learn which technologies are already available, who made them, and where to find them. If the technology is not public, you will learn how to build, buy, or steal it. And if doesn’t yet exist, you will learn what stands in the way of making it real. With thirty entries spanning everything from teleportation to self-contained skyscraper cities, Where’s My Jetpack? is an endlessly entertaining, one-of-a-kind look at the world that we always wanted.
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Treachery
- By: Bill Gertz
- Narrator: Alan Sklar
- Length: 10 hours 29 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2005
- Language: English
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3.38(55 ratings)
3.38(55 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDIn this explosive book, New York Times bestselling author Bill Gertz uncovers the most significant threat to US national security today: America’s enemies–including radical terrorist groups–are arming themselves with theIn this explosive book, New York Times bestselling author Bill Gertz uncovers the most significant threat to US national security today: America’s enemies–including radical terrorist groups–are arming themselves with the world’s most dangerous weapons. And they’re doing it with the help of America’s supposed allies. Worst of all, the United States has let it happen.
Only Bill Gertz has the contacts and the knowledge to tell the complete story of how France, Germany, Russia, China, and other countries have armed our enemies to the teeth. Treachery is also the definitive account of what the US government is doing to counter the threat–and of how our leaders have too often failed us.
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A License to Steal
- By: Walter T. Shaw
- Narrator: Joe Barrett
- Length: 7 hours 4 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2008
- Language: English
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3.11(9 ratings)
3.11(9 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0016.95 USDAs early as the 1940s, Walter L. Shaw was thinking of speakerphones, conference calls, and call forwarding. Of the thirty-nine patents to his credit, those three telephonic breakthroughs were his biggest inventions, yet nobody knows his name. AheadAs early as the 1940s, Walter L. Shaw was thinking of speakerphones, conference calls, and call forwarding. Of the thirty-nine patents to his credit, those three telephonic breakthroughs were his biggest inventions, yet nobody knows his name. Ahead of the world by decades, Shaw spent a lifetime inventing and patenting the many means of communication we take for granted, but he was repeatedly cheated by shrewd businessmen and big corporations.
His son, Walter T. Shaw, was enraged by the ill treatment of his father and embraced a personal mission to even the score. Shaw Jr. became one of the most prolific jewel thieves in US history, while Shaw Sr., in order to make ends meet for his family, was persuaded to put his brilliance to work for the mob.
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Blockchain: The Next Everything
- By: Stephen P. Williams
- Narrator: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 8 hours 36 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2019
- Language: English
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3.06(269 ratings)
3.06(269 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.99 USDAn experienced tech writer fully explains blockchain technology and how it will radically transform the world as we know it in this reader-friendly, illuminating guide–“a book for the nerd but especially for the rest of us scratching ourAn experienced tech writer fully explains blockchain technology and how it will radically transform the world as we know it in this reader-friendly, illuminating guide–“a book for the nerd but especially for the rest of us scratching our tech-terrified heads” (Patricia Hampl, author of The Art of the Wasted Day).
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What is blockchain? Why does everyone from tech experts to business moguls to philanthropists believe it is a paradigm-shifting technology, bound to revolutionize society as significantly as the internet? Indeed, why is blockchain touted as The Next Everything?
In this deft, fascinating, and easy-to-digest introduction to one of the most important innovations of recent times, Stephen P. Williams answers these questions, revealing how cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are just one example among dozens of transformative applications that this relatively new technology makes possible. He interprets the complexity into digestible anecdotes, metaphors, and straightforward descriptions for readers who don’t know tech, and explains all of blockchain’s most important aspects: why this so-called digital ledger is unhackable and unchangeable; how its distributed nature may transfer power from central entities like banks, government, and corporations to ordinary citizens around the world; and what its widespread use will mean for society as a whole.
In Blockchain: The Next Everything, Williams takes us on a tour through the systems predicted to soon underpin economics, politics, global trade, science, art, and numerous other aspects of our everyday lives. It is a truly extraordinary journey into our future, “a must-read for anyone who wants to understand where the world is headed” (Hunter Lovins, President and Founder of Natural Capitalism Solutions) and “a small miracle: a book about blockchain that helps the rest of us understand what it is” (Ty Montague, author of True Story and Founder of Co:Collective). -
Who Killed Hollywood?
- By: Peter Bart
- Narrator: Edward Lewis
- Length: 11 hours 54 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2009
- Language: English
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2.62(13 ratings)
2.62(13 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0022.95 USDIn this passionate love-hate letter to the film industry, Peter Bart pulls together his best columns from Variety and GQ, outlining in detail the history and inner workings of Hollywood. In story after story, Bart shows how the major studios haveIn this passionate love-hate letter to the film industry, Peter Bart pulls together his best columns from Variety and GQ, outlining in detail the history and inner workings of Hollywood. In story after story, Bart shows how the major studios have diverted their energies away from production of the shrewdly crafted pictures that once made the industry powerful. There are only a handful of salable subjects in the movies today: natural disasters, aliens, dinosaurs, ghosts, monsters, or any combination thereof. All are subjects easily parlayed into theme-park environments, action figures, video games, and clothing lines. Even the once edgy independent producers like Miramax and New Line have been acquired by conglomerates. Who and what will resurrect Hollywood? Peter Bart has the answers.
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Saving the Starry Night
- By: Patrizia Caraveo
- Narrator: Christine Williams
- Length: 4 hours 23 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2022
- Language: English
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2.5(2 ratings)
2.5(2 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0014.95 USDThis book takes a close look at our relationship with the sky, the stars, light, and darkness. In particular, it examines how light pollution has interfered with the culture of astronomy and our ability to appreciate this essential facet of ourThis book takes a close look at our relationship with the sky, the stars, light, and darkness. In particular, it examines how light pollution has interfered with the culture of astronomy and our ability to appreciate this essential facet of our natural world.
The sky has always held significance for humanity, in both cultural and scientific terms. And yet we persistently pollute it with sometimes unnecessary light in our obsessive desire to chase away the darkness. This effectively switches off the stars, hampering our ability to enjoy one of the most inspiring sights nature has to offer to humankind. In addition, too much light is hazardous to both our health and that of the fauna and flora of this planet.
Saving the Starry Night also features a comprehensive look at the current controversy regarding efforts to expand internet access through the launch into low Earth orbits of thousands of new satellites, which will pollute the night with moving lights while filling to saturation the capability of the circumterrestrial space. This conflict does not mean that the interests of astronomy and those of space technology have to be at odds, and potential compromises are explored between the satellite initiative and the desire to maintain a dark, radio silent sky.
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Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World
- By: Fareed Zakaria
- Narrator: Fareed Zakaria
- Length: 7 hours 24 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2020
- Language: English
Regular Price:Try for $0.0023.99 USDCOVID-19 is speeding up history, but how? What is the shape of the world to come?Lenin once said, “There are decades when nothing happens and weeks when decades happen.” This is one of those times when history has sped up. CNN host andCOVID-19 is speeding up history, but how? What is the shape of the world to come?
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Lenin once said, “There are decades when nothing happens and weeks when decades happen.” This is one of those times when history has sped up. CNN host and bestselling author Fareed Zakaria helps listeners to understand the nature of a post-pandemic world: the political, social, technological, and economic impacts that may take years to unfold.
In the form of ten straightforward “lessons,” covering topics from globalization and threat-preparedness to inequality and technological advancement, Zakaria creates a structure for listeners to begin thinking beyond the immediate impacts of COVID-19. Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World speaks to past, present, and future, and, while urgent and timely, is sure to become an enduring staple. -
Digital Pandemic
- By: Michael Bociurkiw
- Narrator: Michael Bociurkiw
- Length: 3 hours 35 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2021
- Language: English
Regular Price:Try for $0.0014.95 USDIn early 2020 on a writing sabbatical, Michael Bociurkiw was on Spain’s frontier with Gibraltar when his phone started receiving texts from Asia about a mysterious disease sickening hundreds of people in China’s Hubei province. LittleIn early 2020 on a writing sabbatical, Michael Bociurkiw was on Spain’s frontier with Gibraltar when his phone started receiving texts from Asia about a mysterious disease sickening hundreds of people in China’s Hubei province. Little did he know at the time that it would quickly morph into the deadliest pandemic in modern history. His early reporting and commentary on what would become known as the coronavirus pandemic has now been collated into the first postmortem on the crisis. What follows is a bold global analysis from someone with a truly unique international perspective–and from an experienced hand who’s been on the story from the start.
Digital Pandemic chronicles how many technological trends–from working from home and tele-health to distance learning and e-commerce–have been catapulted ahead by at least a decade due to the pandemic. Who got rich and who didn’t. How strongmen and authoritarian governments leveraged the pandemic in their favor. Will influencers and digital nomads survive a not-so-familiar “new normal”? Crucially, the book offers more than two dozen predictions to paint a picture of the “new normal.”
It may be premature to forecast when and how the Covid-19 pandemic will end but, for now, this book is required listening for anyone wishing to understand the lasting impact–both good and bad–on humanity.
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Cliff Weitzman
Cliff Weitzman is a dyslexia advocate and the CEO and founder of Speechify, the #1 text-to-speech app in the world, totaling over 100,000 5-star reviews and ranking first place in the App Store for the News & Magazines category. In 2017, Weitzman was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work making the internet more accessible to people with learning disabilities. Cliff Weitzman has been featured in EdSurge, Inc., PC Mag, Entrepreneur, Mashable, among other leading outlets.
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