Press releases

SEE What You Can Do! Make Magazine Explores Optics--New Issue Features Over 27 Fun Projects

Press release: July 21, 2008

Living rooms across the country are getting a major make-over this summer--sans interior decorators and swatches. The cover feature for Volume 14 of Make Magazine--living room baja buggies—-is the best thing to hit urban living since the Man Cave, and lets you enjoy the desert without the heat in an off-road competition with no rules, no expensive automotive racing equipment and a total disregard for public safety (because the buggies are only 6" by 4").

For those less inclined to jump into the 21st century and still enamored with bell bottoms and leisure suits, the Pixelmusic 3000 is a great way to re-create a mid-1970s video trip. This weekend project pays tribute to those groovy times, and to a product that was either too quirky or too revolutionary to make it past its first year's production run.

Other inspiring projects from Make Vol. 14 include a taffy machine that pulls delicious candy while it stretches the limits of multidimensional math and, in light of our environmentally conscious times, a solar power system that can be used to supplement home or workshop electricity. There's also a great way to irritate your boss with "Upload: Make Noise!"—the desktop computer-turned-musical instrument, as well as "Made on Earth," our quarterly report from the quirky world of backyard technology.

Make Vol. 14 also features another great new lineup of step-by-step projects. In this issue:

  • 3D Movie How-To: with the invention of photography and subsequent worldwide obsession with cinematography, it's about time somebody showed us how to build our own stereo video cameras.
  • Parabolic Microphone: The dollar store DIY spy mic lets you listen from afar.
  • Cosmic Night Light: make a glittering LED constellation jammed in resin – with no soldering!
  • Wireless Motion Sensing: Make shows you how to track your every hit in roller derby action!
  • Evasive Beeping Thing: Infernal noisemakers turn pals into enemies, since it dutifully does exactly what its name implies: it sends out a 5-second, high-pitched beep every few minutes, with high frequencies that trick our ears.

For the Ben Franklin in all of us, Make is devoted to fun, Do-It-Yourself inspiration and discovery. Selling for $14.99 and loaded with exciting projects that help you make the most of your technology at home and away from home, Make celebrates your ability to tweak, hack and bend any technology to your own will. The quarterly magazine (www.makezine.com) is published by O'Reilly Media, changing the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators.

About O’Reilly

O’Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O’Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying “faint signals” from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.

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