AbeBooks' Reading Copy

At the start of the 20th century, electricity was not taken for granted. It was regarded as something almost magical by many people, including Wizard of Oz author L. Frank Baum, who was so inspired by electricity that he wrote a fairytale about it. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published in 1900. Baum’s next […]

Today marks the 101st birthday of Hedy Lamarr, Hollywood actress and inventor of a technology that is still used today. Lamarr got her start as an Austria actress in the 1920s under her real name of Hedy Kiesler. She married a wealthy Austrian munitions baron and at that time gave up her acting career. With […]

Early last month we reported that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had begun a year-long goal of reading two books a month, sharing the titles publicly and opening avenues for discussion on the book club’s Facebook page. The books selected will be chosen with an eye for relevant themes of technology, culture, history and belief systems. […]

This is fascinating to me as a food lover, a tech employee and member of the book industry. Jeopardy devotees may remember the 2011 episodes in which Watson – IBM’s famed cognitive computing system – was pitted against human contenders on the trivia show. Brad Rutter, who first appeared on Jeopardy in 2000 and is […]

A copy of the manual for the first computer game has been sold for £2,500 (around $4,200) by Any Amount of Books in London via AbeBooks. The Ferranti Nimrod Digital Computer Manual is a key piece of technology and gaming history. The game in question is a long way from Minecraft and Angry Birds – it’s […]

Congratulations to everyone who took part in the second AbeBooks’ Hackathon, staged in conjunction with the University of Victoria’s computer science and software engineering programs this past weekend. This 24-hour coding challenge saw three teams of students deliver demonstrations of remarkable quality. The judges from AbeBooks were treated to a Chrome extension that tracked and […]

The second annual AbeBooks’ Hackathon kicks off January 31st at 4pm.  Over a 24 hour period, students in the University of Victoria computer science and software engineering programs will be challenged to produce an innovative application using the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing platform.  At the conclusion, the students will demonstrate their work to a […]

Modern science is rarely dull and there’s usually a fascinating story behind each new discovery. This was the formula that fuelled the Scientific Book Club for more than five decades. With a new title released each month, the Scientific Book Club covered a broad range of topics from geology to marine life and fossil fuels […]

A couple more images from the AbeBooks’ Hackathon which concluded earlier today at the University of Victoria with a series of presentations from the hackers. Excellent work all round (a true 24-hour effort) and true innovation too.

AbeBooks is currently (and I mean right now) staging a 24-hour ‘Hackathon’ coding contest at the University of Victoria for computer science students. The event kicked off at 4pm and the teams will be working through the night before presenting their work to engineers from AbeBooks at 4pm on Saturday. Good luck to all the […]