Maker Pro is a book of essays by more than a dozen prominent and up-and-coming professional makers (Maker Pros). Each essay includes advice and stories on topics such as starting a kit-making business, taking a hardware project open-source, and plenty of encouragement to "quit your day job." This book is a reference for anyone who dreams of turning a hobby into a small business, and features stories from well-known professional makers; it will turn aspiration into inspiration.

Our world has been transformed beyond recognition, particularly in the twentieth century, and so were our lives and our aspirations.Throughout James May's Magnificent Machines, our Top Gear guide explores the iconic themes of the past hundred years: flight, space travel, television, mechanised war, medicine, computers, electronic music, skyscrapers, electronic espionage and much more.But he also reveals the hidden story behind why some inv...

When an Aep Power Outage leaves hundreds of thousands of customers in the dark - as the March 2026 windstorm did across Ohio - immediate questions surface about how electricity is actually generated, transmitted, and controlled, and why those systems fail under stress.This collection of twenty Nikola Tesla essays, letters, and speeches offers primary-source answers from the engineer whose alternating-current inventions still form the backbone of every modern grid.

A leading innovation scholar explains the growing phenomenon and impact of free innovation, in which innovations developed by consumers and given away “for free.”In this book, Eric von Hippel, author of the influential Democratizing Innovation, integrates new theory and research findings into the framework of a “free innovation paradigm.” Free innovation, as he defines it, involves innovations developed by consumers who are self-rewarded for their efforts,...

A dozen fiendishly fun projects for the Raspberry Pi!This wickedly inventive guide shows you how to create all kinds of entertaining and practical projects with Raspberry Pi operating system and programming environment. In Raspberry Pi Projects for the Evil Genius, you’ll learn how to build a Bluetooth-controlled robot, a weather station, home automation and security controllers, a universal remote, and even a minimalist website. You’ll also find out how to establish com...

An illustrated history of American innovators—some well known, some unknown, and all fascinating—by the author of the bestselling The American Century.The real inventor of the steam engine. The creator of the bra. The man who invented modern banking. The creator of the computer operating system. These and scores of others are the characters who populate Harold Evans's rollicking, brilliant history of the men and women who made America what it is.Va...

A "riveting and thoroughly researched" history of language technology's effect on society across millennia—from Sumerian syntax to social media hashtags (Phil Lapsley).Writing was born thousands of years ago in Mesopotamia. Spreading to Sumer, and then Egypt, this revolutionary tool allowed rulers to extend their control far and wide, giving rise to the world's first empires. When Phoenician traders took their alphabet to Greece, literacy's first boom led to the bi...

Invention and innovation are what distinguish the human race from all of the other species on Earth. Throughout history the imagination and pioneering spirit of human kind has compelled us to question why we do things in a certain way and, more importantly, how we can do things better.Celebrating the ingenuity, creativity and resourcefulness that has led to some of the most amazing technological leaps through the ages, Breverton's Encyclopedia of Inventions examines the key innovat...

Famous inventors and the inventions they develop is a fascinating area of historical study that is usually far too advanced for young children. However, a Famous Inventors & Inventions Picture Book breaks that information down in a way that is interesting and engaging to young boys and girls. Instead of pages and pages of text that makes no sense to them, children can see a picture of the inventor alongside the invention they created. This helps to begin laying the foundation for this know...

BUILD ALL-NEW FIENDISHLY FUN ELECTRONICS PROJECTS!Spark your creativity with this wickedly inventive guide. Electronic Gadgets for the Evil Genius, Second Edition, is filled with completely new, amped-up projects that will shock and amaze, such as super-big Tesla coils, lasers, plasma devices, and electrokinetics contraptions.Using affordable, easy-to-find components and equipment, each do-it-yourself project begins with information on safety, the difficulty leve...

For many knowledge-intensive or technology-based start-up companies, the professional management of intellectual property (IP) is critically important. In fact, IP may be the main asset by which the value of a young company is determined and on which decisions to invest in the company are based – and so IP needs to be considered very early in the planning process. The Commercialising Intellectual Property series of ebooks provides a detailed grounding for innovators and researchers. The fi...