Narrator

Jeffrey Kafer

Jeffrey Kafer
  • An in-depth look at virtual reality and how it can be harnessed to improve our everyday lives

    Virtual reality is able to effectively blur the line between reality and illusion, pushing the limits of our imagination and granting us access to any experience imaginable. With well-crafted simulations, these experiences, which are so immersive that the brain believes they’re real, are already widely available with a VR headset and will only become more accessible and commonplace. But how does this new medium affect its users, and does it have a future beyond fantasy and escapism?

    In Experience on Demand, Jeremy Bailenson draws on two decades spent researching the psychological effects of VR and other mass media to help listeners understand this powerful new tool. He offers expert guidelines for interacting with VR and describes the profound ways this technology can be put to use―not to distance ourselves from reality, but to enrich our lives and influence us to treat others, the environment, and even ourselves better. In the world of VR, a football quarterback plays a game against a competing team hundreds of times before even stepping onto the field; members of the United Nations embody a young girl in a refugee camp going through her day-to-day life; and veterans once again walk through the streets where they had experienced trauma.

    There are dangers and many unknowns in using VR, but it also can help us hone our performance, recover from trauma, improve our learning and communication abilities, and enhance our empathic and imaginative capacities. Like any new technology, its most incredible uses might be waiting just around the corner. Experience on Demand is the definitive look at the risks and potential of VR―a must-listen for navigating both the virtual and the physical worlds ahead.

  • A veteran of the Iraq war is appointed undersecretary of defense in order to penetrate a secret government purposely black-shelving zero-point energy, a clean, abundant energy source reverse-engineered from downed UFOs. Are extraterrestrials and UFOs real? Are there secret subterranean military bases hiding advanced technologies that date back to the incident at Roswell? Is there a “false flag” in the works intended to wipe out billions? Steve Alten’s Undisclosed is a mind-opening thriller of “faction” that incorporates testimonials from military and intelligence personnel who were actual eyewitnesses and participants involved in the greatest secret in history.

  • Brash, brilliant, handsome Nicholas Deketomis has built a highly successful career as a lawyer protecting the rights of the innocent while winning multibillion-dollar lawsuits from the powers that be. “Deke” may have come from the wrong side of the tracks, but he’s built a wonderful life for his close-knit family. His wife and two children live in a beautiful house in a seaside community along the Florida Panhandle.

    But their comfortable life is endangered. In the midst of a highly contentious lawsuit against a powerful pharmaceutical company, as well as publicly advocating for a liberal Florida State Senate candidate, this time Deke may have riled the wrong powerbrokers. Scheming against him are a local Bible-thumping preacher, an ambitious district attorney, and two malicious brothers running one of the country’s biggest oil corporations. A vile conspiracy is hatched to bring down Deketomis; setting him up and attempting to convict him on a bogus murder charge would solve many of their problems.

    Deke is in the trial of his life, which quickly becomes a media circus. But this good man will not go down without a bruising fight—especially when he finds his family threatened. And just as it seems that his enemies may have him cornered, he finds help from the unlikeliest source.

  • Now available for the first time with two additional stories!

    Have you ever wondered what it's like to be bitten by a zombie or live through a bioweapon attack? In Cory Doctorow's collection of novellas, he wields his formidable experience in technology and computing to give us mind-bending sci-fi tales that explore the possibilities of information technology—and its various uses—run amok.

    "Anda's Game" is a spin on the bizarre new phenomenon of "cyber sweatshops," in which people are paid very low wages to play online games all day in order to generate in-game wealth, which can be converted into actual money. Another tale tells of the heroic exploits of "sysadmins"—systems administrators—as they defend the cyberworld, and hence the world at large, from worms and bioweapons. And yes, there is a story about zombies too. Plus, for the first time, this collection includes "Petard" and "The Man Who Sold the Moon."

  • The bizarre true story of the criminals behind the second-largest bank heist in American history

    One night in a small North Carolina town, a down-on-his-luck guard at Loomis Fargo manages to steal $17 million—literally more than one ton of cash. Despite being caught on camera wheeling the money from the vault to the getaway van, David Ghantt makes off to Mexico before the FBI can blink.

    There’s just one hitch: Ghantt has entrusted the money to an oddball crew of accomplices who had wooed him into committing this massive theft in the first place—and who, he soon learns, are trying to take him out. Now one of the most wanted men in America, and with the FBI hot on his heels, Ghantt must figure out how to get his money, get away from a hit man, and get even.

    In this outrageously entertaining book, Jeff Diamant, the Charlotte Observer’s lead reporter on the case, offers the definitive inside account of this astonishing true story that has captivated American audiences on the news.

  • Have you ever wondered what it's like to live through a bioweapon attack or to have every aspect of your life governed by invisible ants? In Cory Doctorow's collection of novellas, he wields his formidable experience in technology and computing to give us mind-bending sci-fi tales that explore the possibilities of information technology—and its various uses—run amok.

    "Anda's Game" is a spin on the bizarre new phenomenon of "cyber sweatshops," in which people are paid very low wages to play online games all day in order to generate in-game wealth, which can be converted into actual money. Another tale tells of the heroic exploits of "sysadmins"—systems administrators—as they defend the cyberworld, and hence the world at large, from worms and bioweapons. And yes, there is a story about zombies too.