Recommended Reading: Cool Tools review, drone delivery and more
Recommended Reading highlights the best long-form writing on technology in print and on the web. Some weeks, you'll also find short reviews of books dealing with the subject of technology that we think are worth your time. We hope you enjoy the read.
Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities
by Kevin Kelly
This may well be the greatest catalog of all-time -- and given its Boing Boing connection (Cool Tools was cofounded by Boing Boing creator Mark Frauenfelder), you can be assured it's full of wonderful things. Want to draw a graphic novel, design a fabric, shoot a film on the cheap or survive in the woods during the coming apocalypse? There's a cool tool for each of those activities -- several, in fact. Each tool sports a quick description (from one to four paragraphs), the price and a URL where you can buy it. There's also a QR code by each, to save you precious seconds of typing time. Cool Tools doesn't actually sell any of the gadgets itself, so the massive tome comes with a fairly lofty $40 price tag, but for the person who thinks he has everything, here's nearly 500 pages to show them just how wrong they are. -- Brian Heater, Director of Media
Any Given Sunday: Inside the Chaos and Spectacle of the NFL on Fox Ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes in order to get that Sunday afternoon pigskin broadcast to your HDTV? David Pierce takes an in-depth look from the control room for the Patriots and Saints, observing the frantic happenings and lighting-fast pace needed to air NFL of Fox in real time each weekend. | A Drone-Delivery Expert Answers the Big Questions About Amazon's Plans Amazon's plan to employ delivery drones caused quite a stir this past week, so The Atlantic sat down with drone package-delivery expert Andreas Raptopoulos of Matternet to discuss the implications of Prime Air including issues of scale, reliability and regulatory approval. |
A Fond Farewell to the Craziest, Longest, Most Eventful Console Generation Ever (3,725 words) Wired's Chris Kohler bids adieu to the last-gen consoles by remembering all of the events surrounding their introduction, life cycle and what we can learn from the past eight years. "One thing's for sure: If the last generation was that insane, this one's going to be even crazier" Kohler writes. | Silicon Chasm (5,448 words) Charlotte Allen examines the how the class divide that has characterized the economy in the US over the last several years has firmly taken root in Silicon Valley -- complete with a brief tour of the area's "wealth belt" Atherton, about 30 miles south of San Fran. |
