Defying Reality
The Inside Story of the Virtual Reality Revolution
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Defying Reality
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Narrated by:
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Max Adler
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By:
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David M. Ewalt
About this listen
A fascinating exploration of the history, development, and future of virtual reality, a technology with world-changing potential, written by award-winning journalist and author David Ewalt, stemming from his 2015 Forbes cover story about the Oculus Rift and its creator Palmer Luckey.
You’ve heard about virtual reality, seen the new gadgets, and heard about how VR will be the next big thing. But you probably haven’t yet realized the extent to which this technology will change the way we live. We used to be bound to a physical reality, but new immersive computer simulations allow us to escape our homes and bodies. Suddenly anyone can see what it’s like to stand on the peak of Mount Everest. A person who can’t walk can experience a marathon from the perspective of an Olympic champion. And why stop there? Become a dragon and fly through the universe. But it’s not only about spectacle. Virtual and augmented reality will impact nearly every aspect of our lives - commerce, medicine, politics - the applications are infinite.
It may sound like science fiction, but this vision of the future drives billions of dollars in business and is a top priority for such companies as Facebook, Google, and Sony. Yet little is known about the history of these technologies. In Defying Reality, David M. Ewalt traces the story from ancient amphitheaters to Cold War military laboratories, through decades of hype and failure, to a 19-year-old video game aficionado who made the impossible possible. Ewalt looks at how businesses are already using this tech to revolutionize the world around us, and what we can expect in the future. Writing for a mainstream audience as well as for technology enthusiasts, Ewalt offers a unique perspective on VR. With firsthand accounts and on-the-ground reporting, Defying Reality shows how virtual reality will change our work, our play, and the way we relate to one another.
©2018 David M. Ewalt (P)2018 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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-
Story4 out of 5 stars 222
Over the last three years, Forbes has published in depth profiles of this new batch of billionaires, including the founders of Spotify, Dropbox, Tumblr, and Twitter. Now, in a compilation introduced and updated by Forbes editor Randall Lane, fans and critics alike will get a comprehensive look at who these super-entrepreneurs are and what they say about their own success and their plans for the future.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Awesome book!
- By Jamal Love on 06-17-15
By: Randall Lane
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The Art of Innovation
- Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm
- By: Tom Kelley, Jonathan Littman - contributor, Tom Peters - foreword
- Narrated by: Nick Podehl
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 296
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 246
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 244
IDEO, the widely admired, award-winning design and development firm that brought the world the Apple mouse, Polaroid's I-Zone instant camera, the Palm V, and hundreds of other cutting-edge products and services, reveals its secrets for fostering a culture and process of continuous innovation.
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3 out of 5 stars
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This is an old book!
- By EPR review on 01-05-17
By: Tom Kelley, and others
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Universal Versus Disney
- The Unofficial Guide to American Theme Parks' Greatest Rivalry
- By: Sam Gennawey
- Narrated by: Robert Feifar
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 98
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 96
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 95
Universal Studios never really wanted to get into the theme park business. They wanted to be the anti-Disney. But when forced to do so, they did it in a big way. Despite the fits and starts of multiple owners, the parks have finally gained the momentum to mount a serious challenge to the Walt Disney Company. How did this happen? Who made it happen? What does this mean for the theme park industry?
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1 out of 5 stars
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Dull and VERY Misleading Title
- By MagicMan504 on 03-19-16
By: Sam Gennawey
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Broad Band
- The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet
- By: Claire L. Evans
- Narrated by: Claire L. Evans
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 172
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 146
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 145
Women are not ancillary to the history of technology; they turn up at the very beginning of every important wave. But they've often been hidden in plain sight, their inventions and contributions touching our lives in ways we don't even realize. Vice reporter and YACHT lead singer Claire L. Evans finally gives these unsung female heroes their due with her insightful social history of the Broad Band, the women who made the Internet what it is today. Evans shows us how these women built and colored the technologies we can't imagine life without.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Inspiring
- By Jean on 03-29-18
By: Claire L. Evans
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The Friendly Orange Glow
- The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture
- By: Brian Dear
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 21 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 116
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 107
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 107
At a time when Steve Jobs was only a teenager and Mark Zuckerberg wasn't even born, a group of visionary engineers and designers - some of them only high school students - in the late 1960s and 1970s created a computer system called PLATO, which was not only years but light-years ahead in experimenting with how people would learn, engage, communicate, and play through connected computers.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Memory lane for the cyberist.
- By Robert C. Hickcox on 08-08-18
By: Brian Dear
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Group Genius
- The Creative Power of Collaboration
- By: Keith Sawyer
- Narrated by: Jonathan Marosz
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 80
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 47
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
In this authoritative and fascinating new audiobook, Keith Sawyer, a psychologist at Washington University, tears down some of the most popular myths about creativity and erects new principles in their place. He reveals that creativity is always collaborative: even when you're alone. Sawyer's audiobook is filled with compelling stories about the inventions that changed our world.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Worth reading
- By Glenn on 12-29-10
By: Keith Sawyer
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The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs
- By: Carmine Gallo
- Narrated by: Sean Mangan
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 517
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 424
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Story4 out of 5 stars 420
In The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs, best-selling author Carmine Gallo reveals the qualities that make the Apple co-founder the most innovative leader in business today. Each principle is backed with research, quotes, and first-person interviews with experts and business leaders, as well as specific ideas for applying those principles to every business, large or small.
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1 out of 5 stars
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awful
- By Thomas on 10-15-11
By: Carmine Gallo
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Explore/Create
- My Life in Pursuit of New Frontiers, Hidden Worlds, and the Creative Spark
- By: Richard Garriott, David Fisher
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 73
An inventor, adventurer, entrepreneur, collector, and entertainer, and son of legendary scientist-astronaut Owen Garriott, Richard Garriott de Cayeux has been behind some of the most exciting undertakings of our time. A legendary pioneer of the online gaming industry - and a member of every gaming Hall of Fame - Garriott invented the multi-player online game, and coined the term "Avatar" to describe an individual's online character. In this fascinating memoir, Garriott invites listeners on the great adventure that is his life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Modern Day Explorer
- By Elijah on 04-17-17
By: Richard Garriott, and others
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LEGO
- A Love Story
- By: Jonathan Bender
- Narrated by: Jeremy Gage
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 135
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 109
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Story4 out of 5 stars 109
There are 62 LEGO bricks for every person in the world, and at age 30, Jonathan Bender realized that he didn't have a single one of them. While reconsidering his childhood dream of becoming a master model builder for The LEGO Group, he discovers the men and women who are skewing the averages with collections of hundreds of thousands of LEGO bricks. What is it about the ubiquitous, brightly colored toys that makes them so hard for everyone to put down?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Be careful if you already like Lego
- By Matthew Center on 03-14-11
By: Jonathan Bender
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Electronic Dreams
- How 1980s Britain Learned to Love the Computer
- By: Tom Lean
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 22
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 20
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Story5 out of 5 stars 20
In Electronic Dreams, Tom Lean tells the story of how computers invaded British homes for the first time, as people set aside their worries of electronic brains and Big Brother and embraced the wonder technology of the 1980s. This book charts the history of the rise and fall of the home computer, the family of futuristic and quirky machines that took computing from the realm of science and science fiction to being a user-friendly domestic technology.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Awesome outline of electronic history
- By Johnny on 09-28-17
By: Tom Lean
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Losing the Signal
- The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry
- By: Jacquie McNish, Sean Silcoff
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 872
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 757
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 756
Losing the Signal is a riveting story of a company that toppled global giants before succumbing to the ruthlessly competitive forces of Silicon Valley. This is not a conventional tale of modern business failure by fraud and greed. The rise and fall of BlackBerry reveals the dangerous speed at which innovators race along the information superhighway.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating
- By Gerardo A Dada on 09-05-15
By: Jacquie McNish, and others
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The Click Moment
- Seizing Opportunity in an Unpredictable World
- By: Frans Johansson
- Narrated by: Erik Synnestvedt
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
On the one hand we aren’t surprised by the uncertainty of everyday life, but on the other we believe that success can be analyzed and planned for. It is a revealing paradox. The implications are explosive and they obliterate every common-sense notion we have about strategy and planning. The Click Moment is about two very simple but highly provocative ideas.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding book!
- By Anilyn Karel on 08-26-24
By: Frans Johansson
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No Better Time
- The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet
- By: Molly Knight Raskin
- Narrated by: Christine Marshall
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 65
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 60
No Better Time tells of a young, driven mathematical genius who wrote a set of algorithms that would create a faster, better Internet. It's the story of a beautiful friendship between a loud, irreverent student and his soft-spoken MIT professor, of a husband and father who spent years struggling to make ends meet only to become a billionaire almost overnight with the success of Akamai Technologies, the Internet content delivery network he cofounded with his mentor.
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4 out of 5 stars
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An Overlooked Hero of 9-11
- By Jean on 05-27-16
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Glimmer
- How Design Can Transform Your Life and Maybe Even the World
- By: Warren Berger
- Narrated by: Ax Norman
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 72
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4 out of 5 stars 39
The first book to reveal how thinking like a designer can help solve the greatest challenges we face in business, society, and our daily lives. What can we learn from the ways great designers think-and how can it improve our world? In this highly original book by journalist Warren Berger, in collaboration with celebrated designer Bruce Mau, ten groundbreaking principles of design are shown in action-addressing business, social, and personal challenges and improving the way we think, work, and live.
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2 out of 5 stars
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not for those who know about design thinking...
- By Pierre on 09-06-10
By: Warren Berger
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Primal Branding
- Create Zealots for Your Brand, Your Company, and Your Future
- By: Patrick Hanlon
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 388
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 292
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Story4 out of 5 stars 291
What is it that made Starbucks an overnight sensation and separated it from other coffee house companies? Why do many products with great product innovation, perfect locations, terrific customer experiences, even breakthrough advertising, fail to get the same visceral traction in the marketplace as brands like Apple and Nike?
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good book, hard to stay interested
- By Axiom Brevity on 11-21-16
By: Patrick Hanlon
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Space Odyssey
- Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece
- By: Michael Benson
- Narrated by: Todd McLaren
- Length: 17 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 318
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 282
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Story5 out of 5 stars 281
Regarded as a masterpiece today, 2001: A Space Odyssey received mixed reviews. Despite the success of Dr. Strangelove, director Stanley Kubrick wasn't yet recognized as a great filmmaker, and 2001 was radically innovative, with little dialogue and no strong central character. Author Michael Benson explains how 2001 was made, telling the story primarily through the two people most responsible for the film, Kubrick and science fiction legend Arthur C. Clarke. Benson interviewed Clarke many times, and has also spoken at length with Kubrick's widow, Christiane.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Book Wholly Equal to its Subject
- By Reggie on 04-17-19
By: Michael Benson
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The New New Thing
- A Silicon Valley Story
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Bruce Reizen
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,064
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 807
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Story4 out of 5 stars 805
In the weird glow of the dying millennium, Michael Lewis sets out on a safari through Silicon Valley to find the world's most important technology entrepreneur, the man who embodies the spirit of the coming age. He finds him in Jim Clark, who is about to create his third, separate, billion-dollar company: first Silicon Graphics, then Netscape - which launched the Information Age - and now Healtheon, a startup that may turn the $1 trillion healthcare industry on its head.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A fun book about Jim Clark
- By Horace on 07-07-10
By: Michael Lewis
What listeners say about Defying Reality
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Oscar
- 01-21-19
Too much history, too few about the future
This is basically a history book of VR in recent years. Nothing new, no much I couldn't read from free internet articles, and nothing about the future.
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