The more you know, the more you don’t, and that is precisely how profound knowledge works. The world is teeming with information, and it would require, at least, several eternities to grasp the realities of this universe. From the formation of red blood cells in the human body to the construction of space rockets that happen to venture into space, the galaxy is never-ending, and we’re no bigger than a minuscule fragment of it. So to take in bits and pieces of information each day that ultimately come together to grant us knowledge, most tend to incline towards audiobooks.
These are a relatively new concept where instead of reading books, people listen to them, thus the word “audiobooks.” Amazon is currently at the forefront of this scene with its trendy brand called Audible. This is a web application that houses tons of e-books, audiobooks, and podcasts for curious individuals. Other than that, you’ve got the whole of the interweb to search for audiobooks, both paid and free ones, and enjoy them in all their glory.
If you’re a Chromebook user who happens to have a keen interest in the field of tech and is looking for free audiobooks, you’ve landed on just the right page. In other news, you can also kill some time pretty productively by listening to audiobooks and consuming their wisdom. Whatever the case, we’ll be talking about the top 10 free tech audiobooks you should be reading on your Chromebook in this article, so sit back, relax, and follow along with the article for a descriptive guide. Without any further ado, then, let’s jump right in.
10 of the best free tech audiobooks
1. Edison, His Life, and Inventions
Edison, His Life, and Inventions
Humanity owes a lot to the legend of Thomas Alva Edison. The man is known as “America’s greatest inventor” and the “Father of invention” in modern times. His contributions toward mankind formed the pathway for other prodigious leaders and innovators to follow. Still, without the presence of the man himself, we might not be here where we are today. The audiobook Edison, His Life, and Inventions is an in-depth biography of the man in question where periods of his childhood, youth, and adulthood are discussed. This book is no less than a source of inspiration. Edison pushed through the struggles of life and overcame innumerable difficulties to achieve his goal.
In addition, readers can familiarize themselves with what it took for Edison to become the man he is today in history. The biography is written by Frank Lewis Dyer – a noteworthy figure in the entertainment and literary industry. This audiobook is worth a listen if you’d like to know how modern inventions were shaped and what kicked off the most significant innovations in the world. Edison was the man who came up with the concept of developing an incandescent light bulb. Little did he know that he would dedicate his whole life towards technological creations of the like.
The audiobook has 52 chapters, each of which ranges from 30 minutes to 1 hour in time. So the total running time of Edison, His Life and Inventions is 29 hours, 41 minutes, and 34 seconds. The zip file size of the audiobook is somewhere around 856 MB, so make sure you have enough space on your Chromebook before beginning the download. While you do that, it might be exciting and helpful to look into the process of zipping and unzipping on Chrome OS.
You can download how Edison, His Life, and Inventions directly from LibriVox.
2. The Romance of Modern Invention
The Romance of Modern Invention
The Romance of Modern Invention is a class apart from your regular tech-related audiobooks. It takes a deep dive into modern inventions and explores them from a highly distinct point of perspective. It’s because of this reason that this audiobook is a well-established part of the world’s entire knowledge base. Since The Romance of Modern inventions is all about tech, the author made sure to implement non-technical devices and writing styles to make the readers understand everything written.
The first chapter of this audiobook is Wireless Telegraphy which is almost 32 minutes long. The reader for this chapter is Kobe Dadd, and the runtime is nearly 33 minutes long. Wireless Telegraphy is otherwise known as Radiotelegraphy, and it involves the transfer of telegraph signals with the help of special radio signals. The radio waves, in graphical form, are depicted by two different patterns: dashes and dots. Each wave has its meaning, but experienced users could’ve told what’s what just by taking a glance. This is just a preliminary description of what is otherwise just the tip of the iceberg.
This audiobook is divided into 22 sections, with each of them being 25 minutes on average, or if we were to give you a range, 15 minutes to 35 minutes. Therefore, this makes the total running time somewhere around 9 hours and 1 minute. The full zip file size is about 254 MB which is not less but isn’t too much either. Your Chrome OS laptop can easily handle whatever you throw at it to a reasonable extent. The author of The Romance of Modern Inventions is Archibald Williams, who was once a renowned journalist.
You can download The Romance of Modern Inventions directly from LibriVox.
3. Free: The Future of a Radical Price
Free: The Future of a Radical Price
Free: The Future of a Radical Price was published on July 7, 2009, and has since won many accolades. One of them is even the New York Time’s Best Sellers, where the book in question earned the 12th spot in the form of a hard copy. The latter was retailed for $29.99 at the time of its release. When it was first published, a browser-readable variant of Free: The Future of a Radical Price also came out, and the reception in this regard was no less than terrific. The digital version of the book got somewhere around 200,000 to 300,000 downloads in its first week of release.
The book was under the guillotine at the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal but had managed to score appreciable reviews nonetheless. This write-up is the second product of its writer—Chris Anderson—who also happened to be the editor-in-chief at WIRED magazine when writing the book. To talk about the contents of Free: The Future of a Radical Price, Anderson discusses how the world of business will be restructured in the years to come. The future holds no guarantee as to what it will be but having the upper hand of knowledge always pays off, and this book concentrates on just that.
Furthermore, Chris Anderson talks about the tactical strategy of companies regarding the concept of “freemium” products. When a product or a service is provided to customers for free, and there’s no cost whatsoever for the utilization of that service’s or product’s basic features, the upselling part always follows through after that. By attracting customers with the free part, a slew of advanced features are then laid out on a table, tempting the customer to now pay, make the purchase, and continue to reside in that company’s ecosystem. The “freemium” concept has now become exceedingly famous in the realm of digital businesses.
You can download and listen to Free: The Future of a Radical Price quickly from LearnOutLoud on your Chromebook.
4. Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX
Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX
This audiobook is premium-grade and cannot be listened to for free. However, there is a method of accessing it without paying anything, and we’ll get into that by the end of this section. All of the networking and computing world knows the name Elon Musk. Elon Musk is the richest individual in recorded history with a net worth of an unimaginative 271 billion USD. He is the CEO of Tesla, has founded the construction work-oriented The Boring Company, and owns SpaceX.
However, to focus on the latter, SpaceX didn’t become the entity it is today out of thin air. Instead, musk had to surmount immovable challenges overcome all the struggles associated with making a name in the aerospace industry. Like any other start-up, SpaceX had its fair share of difficult times back in the day, but the real question is: how did it become one of the most successful companies out there then?
The audiobook Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX beckons to answer just that query and is a must-listen for all those looking to start their own business in the not-so-distant future. Learn from the wealthiest man on the planet and find out how he persevered through thick and thin.
You can listen to this audiobook by opting for a free trial on Audiobooks. That way, you won’t have to pay a single dime.
5. Great Inventors and Their Inventions
Great Inventors and Their Inventions
Great Inventors and Their Inventions isn’t a book; it’s an experience. The world as we see it today wasn’t forever like this. It’s standing on pillars constructed by brilliant minds with an insatiable thirst for knowledge and achievement. Today’s inventors are going to form the future, similar to how the inventors of the past have paved our present. This is a cycle that will keep on repeating itself until the end of time.
The audiobook at hand is all about legendary figures and what they contributed to our lives. The author is Frank Puterbaugh Bachman, who has made similar high-quality write-ups in his lifetime of 63 years.
In the book, different instances are discussed, highlighting important events from discovery and advancement. The findings of eminent figures such as Alexander Bell, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Samuel Finley Breese Morse, Johannes Gutenberg, and Thomas Edison are all discussed in the book and other significant discoveries.
James Watt and the Invention of the Steam Engine, Robert Fulton and the Invention of the Steamboat, George Stephenson and the Invention of the Locomotive, and the Invention of the Electric Engine are some of the most inspiring stories ever that like-minded people shouldn’t miss out on.
The audiobook has a total of 16 chapters, so it’s certainly not as sizable as Edison, His Life, and Inventions. Each chapter’s runtime ranges from 14-40 minutes, depending on the written content. That makes the total running time just shy of 4 minutes shy of 6 hours. Lastly, the entire zip file size is 167 MB. We reiterate: make sure to have enough storage space on your Chromebook to download the audiobook successfully.
If you want to up your knowledge on history by reading about some of the greatest minds ever to exist and how everything substantial regarding modern-day technology came out to be, Great Inventors and Their Inventions is a must-listen.
You can listen to Great Inventors and Their Inventions and download it as well on LibriVox.
6. The Future is Faster Than You Think
The Future is Faster Than You Think
The Future is Faster Than You Think isn’t technically a free audiobook, but there is a way that you can listen to it for free. While we will illustrate that by the end of this section, let us target what this audiobook is all about for now. The write-up comes from the brilliant minds of Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler, who have been named as bestselling authors of the New York Times. Their previous works have been no less than masterful creations, and in this book—The Future is Faster Than You Think—the success story has continued. This is a write-up that makes us ponder as to what the future of this world holds.
The authors write that the world is progressing at an unprecedented rate, but there is an insight that can be provided regarding how the world will look after ten years. All of the innovations and technological improvements that will come about in the next decade will reshape how we’ll live our lives. A lot is going on currently, such as AI, automated learning, machine learning, and robotics, that will make our lives a lot seamless. However, that’s taking into account that everything goes right. Otherwise, it wouldn’t take long for a real-life Skynet company to launch, promising mass destruction and the end of the world. We were kidding.
If you’re a tech enthusiast who cannot wait for the future to arrive, let this audiobook curb your craving to a reasonable extent. The book is divided into three major sections: The Power of Convergence, The Rebirth of Everything, and The Faster Future. In addition, there is a total of 14 chapters that each range from 14 minutes to 1 hour plus, with the average runtime being 40 minutes. The research shown in the book is amazingly well-done, and avid readers will grow to appreciate that without a doubt.
You can listen to the whole The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives audiobook on YouTube by using this direct link.
7. Inventions of the Great War
Inventions of the Great War
Inventions of the Great War is an audiobook that will take you along an open-ended voyage. This write-up was created by Alexander Russell Bond, who was once an editor of the Scientific American Magazine. Bond had many other works rolling out and about when it boils down to one of his most commendable books, Inventions of the Great War is worth a mention. You’ve got a detailed analysis of all the technological advancements in the times of the first World War that formed the basis of other inventions to come.
Bond writes that three earth-shattering inventions controlled how the war would turn out to be, but there were a lot more than collectively contributed to the man-made inventions. Some of those include tanks, flamethrowers, hydrophones, among others. The emphasis is on the fact that war isn’t all about destruction, death, and chaos. It’s also a colossal motivating factor for a man to push his inventive ability and be the best version of himself. It cultivated more advanced thinking and led to likewise results. Therefore, Bond writes that war, despite its detrimental consequences, has made the world a lot richer than it was before.
Inventions of the Great War have 16 chapters, excluding the five-and-a-half-minute-long preface. Each chapter’s runtime ranges from somewhere 14 to 34 minutes, depending on the amount of content written. Therefore, this makes the total runtime of the audiobook span over 6 hours and 40 minutes. The full zip file size is about 188 MB, so make sure your storage check’s out when downloading it.
You can effortlessly download and listen to Inventions of the Great War on LibriVox.
8. Ghost in the Wires
Ghosts in the Wires
While Ghost in the Wires isn’t technically a free audiobook, we’re mentioning it because there’s a way of getting it by paying nothing. This audiobook—the content and overview of which we will get into later—is an Audible Original, meaning that it can only be accessed from the Audible platform, an Amazon company. This program is where the vast majority of the people come for their fix of audiobooks as there is nothing but those on Audible. Users will find both top-rated and averagely going audiobooks on Audible but rest assured because this software is the best at what it does.
Think Netflix for audiobooks, only a lot better. However, you must be thinking that if Ghost in the Wires isn’t free, why is it on this list? That is because it is, well, in one way. The gist of it is that Audible lets you register for free on the official website, and by doing that, you can get yourself a free audiobook, but make sure that it’s only one. If you’d want to cancel the membership, you can also do that before the trial period expires. This is a commendable methodology of letting aspiring new users taste the next-level quality of Audible’s “AudiblePlus” service. In addition, what better way to use your one audiobook pass for something other than Ghost in Wires.
To talk about the audiobook itself now, it’d be comforting for you to know that Ghost in the Wires has a total of 4.5/5.0 overall rating where people have reviewed the file to be outright excellent. One user writes that this audiobook is just for those looking for an easy-to-understand overview of how the field of hacking has progressed in the whole of the technology spectrum. The period that’s mainly focused on is the late 1970s to the early 1990s. The best part is that the narrator’s perspective pertains to inside jobs, so what you’re reading at the moment is uninterrupted, straightforward audiobook information.
You can get started with registering an Audible account and subsequently play the audiobook at hand effortlessly. Do that by clicking on this link.
9. Invention And Discovery: Curious Facts And Characteristic Sketches
Invention And Discovery: Curious Facts And Characteristic Sketches
Invention and Discovery: Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches don’t come from a single, reputed, high-quality author. The source of this eye-opening audiobook is unknown. Credits where it’s due, someone didn’t genuinely want any praise to their name for being the author of this book. To focus on the subject of this write-up, there is a whole assortment of different instances where the history of discovery is laid out for users to listen to and inspire ripples in their own daily lives.
Other than that, a curious look is provided into the lives and labor of the men who reformed the 19th and 20th centuries. Factual data is provided rather than theoretical, so more people can find this audiobook trustworthy and reliable. It’s best that you up your knowledge on the history of the world and have some general information lying around in the back of your mind somewhere. After all, a little extra intel can never hurt, and we can guarantee that first-hand.
There are a total of 9 chapters in this book, excluding the introductory note. Each chapter is about 30 minutes long, with some of them having 1- or 2-minute differences. The total zip file size is 130 MB, so it’s not something to worry about. Even the most less-specced Chromebook can handle up to 16 GBs of storage without an issue, so the file size of Invention and Discovery: Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches should be good to go with. Lastly, the total running time of this audiobook is 4 hours, 37 minutes, and 6 seconds, which is perfect for listening during traveling or anything of the like.
You can download Invention and Discovery: Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches from LibriVox using your Chromebook easily.
10. The Time Machine
The Time Machine
The Time Machine is a technology-centric novel written by H.G Wells. It was first published back in 1895 and can now be listened to as an audiobook. The writer—Herbert George Wells—has proven to be prolific in many genres, including science-fiction and technology. In this book, Wells takes us on a journey of an enthusiastic young scientist who has happened to acquire the knowledge of time travel. He perceives time as the fourth dimension of the universe, meaning that this is a plane that can be accessed and traversed, given the right equipment.
The main character is referred to as The Time Traveller. In the first chapter, he explains to his friends about this cutting-edge discovery and how time travel is an exceedingly possible prospect. He uses a miniature to illustrate the process initially but later developed a full-fledged time machine of his own that houses the potential to propel him into the future. Once he attains the apparatus needed, he embarks on this thrilling adventure and leaves his time for the sake of exploration.
When The Time Traveler first sets out on his adventure, he is shown witnessing the environment evolving into something next-gen. However, the machine he’s built for himself is capable of withstanding the test of time, which is quite destructive in this sense. In addition, the Time Traveler is seen observing the changing day and night cycles in rapid motion as the horizon in the background transitions back and forth due to the effect of the sun and the moon. Over time, as the Time Traveler starts to get a bit too comfortable with his expedition beyond the cosmos, everything begins to blur out, and all that’s left is an escape route for our hero to follow.
The novel discusses technology at its very peak, although in a fictional sense. Still, it’s worth a shot if you’re into stuff such as this. You can listen to The Time Machine as an audiobook by clicking on this link and heading over to Lit2Go.
Conclusion
The world is expanding each day and getting both better and worse at the same time. Being the advocate of positivity, one should always look out on the bright side of things, and nothing screams more positivity than free goodies. This article has talked about the top 10 free tech audiobooks that you can listen to on your Chromebook without breaking a sweat. Since we have discussed only those audiobooks that do not cost anything to be downloaded and listened to, you won’t find many of the latest entries.
This is because most paid audiobooks, especially the tech genre, have their camp set up on platforms like Google Play Books and Audible. Kindle Cloud Reader is also a good option in this regard, but some options may not be available to you. Therefore, we will advise you to start purchasing if you’re interested in more recent audiobooks, but other than that, this list will suffice for your adequately. If you happen to start listening to an audiobook from this list and grow to like it, don’t forget to comment below and tell us all about it. As always, Chrome Ready wishes you good luck!
