Keegan, the best skier on the hill, ends up playing detective when he discovers that someone is trying to sabotage the ski team, and it looks like a pretty blonde snowboarder is involved.

Skydiving--one mistake, and you fall like a piano.until, SPLAT! You're a blob of jam. Jeff Nichols works at a local flight school--just to pay for his skydiving. Then he hears of a plan to put his biggest rival into a 'chute roll, which he knows no skydiver has ever survived. But trying to stop it might put Jeff in an airplane at 10,000 feet--without his parachute.

Scuba diving--there's a lot more to worry about than sharks! "I can't breathe!!!" Ian Hill spends his Florida summers helping his uncle run a dive shop. But just when he thinks it's going to be another boring summer hehind the counter, Ian hears that a recent storm has uncovered a pirate shipwreck hidden for years on the ocean floor. Soon Ian's slow summer at the scuba shop turns into a diver's nightmare.

Blake Coffey knows the mountain trails better than anyone. He practices harder than anyone. And nobody can pull the stunts he does. So winning the Summit Race seems to be a sure thing.until he finds a backpack of hundred-dollar bills along the trail during a practice run. Now it seems the sport he lives for just might kill him.

The process of user-centered innovation: how it can benefit both users and manufacturers and how its emergence will bring changes in business models and in public policy. Innovation is rapidly becoming democratized. Users, aided by improvements in computer and communications technology, increasingly can develop their own new products and services. These innovating users—both individuals and firms—often freely share their innovations with others, creating user-innovation communities and a rich intellectual commons. In Democratizing Innovation, Eric von Hippel looks closely at this emerging system of user-centered innovation. He explains why and when users find it profitable to develop new products and services for themselves, and why it often pays users to reveal their innovations freely for the use of all.The trend toward democratized innovation can be seen in software and information products—most notably in the free and open-source software movement—but also in physical products. Von Hippel's many examples of user innovation in action range from surgical equipment to surfboards to software security features. He shows that product and service development is concentrated among "lead users," who are ahead on marketplace trends and whose innovations are often commercially attractive. Von Hippel argues that manufacturers should redesign their innovation processes and that they should systematically seek out innovations developed by users. He points to businesses—the custom semiconductor industry is one example—that have learned to assist user-innovators by providing them with toolkits for developing new products. User innovation has a positive impact on social welfare, and von Hippel proposes that government policies, including R&D subsidies and tax credits, should be realigned to eliminate biases against it. The goal of a democratized user-centered innovation system, says von Hippel, is well worth striving for. An electronic version of this book is available under a Creative Commons license.

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From cities to quaint towns and everything in between, Provence has something for everyone. Swim in the crystal clear waters of the Calanque de Sormiou in Marseille. Drive with the top down through fields of lavender in Valensole. Experience a bite of just-out-of-the-oven fougasse, a Provençal classic. Stand in awe of the beautiful, white Camargue horses native to the area. Located in the South of France, Provence is uniquely positioned to be a cultural blend of the Mediterranean. Roman landmarks still prevail from the 1st century AD alongside châteaus from medieval times—a varied legacy brightened by the indigenous mimosas and cypresses.