Computer Science History

Cody Wilson, a self-described crypto-anarchist and rogue thinker, combines the controversial yet thrilling story of the production of the first ever 3D printable gun with a startling philosophical manifesto that gets to the heart of the 21st-century debate over the freedom of information and ideas.

Social worker, activist, and cultural commentator Feminista Jones explores how Black women are changing culture, society, and the landscape of feminism by building digital communities and using social media as powerful platforms. As Jones reveals, some of the best-loved devices of our shared social media language are a result of Black women’s innovations, from well-known, movement-building hashtags (#BlackLivesMatter, #SayHerName, and #BlackGirlMagic) to the now ubiquitous use of threaded tweets as a marketing and storytelling tool.

Flipping TVs is a business model that is often overlooked, but those who are getting involved and know what to look out for can make impressive additional incomes–with very little effort.

AI expert Yorick Wilks takes a journey through the history of artificial intelligence up to the present day, examining its origins, controversies, and achievements, as well as looking into just how it works. He also considers the future, assessing whether these technologies could menace our way of life and how we are all likely to benefit from AI applications in the years to come.

In an unparalleled collaboration, two leading global thinkers in technology and foreign affairs give us their widely anticipated, transformational vision of the future: a world where everyone is connected - a world full of challenges and benefits that are ours to meet and to harness. Eric Schmidt is one of Silicon Valley’s great leaders, having taken Google from a small startup to one of the world’s most influential companies. Jared Cohen is the director of Google Ideas and a former adviser to secretaries of state Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton.

Today we take it for granted that Japan is a forge of the world's fantasies: the birthplace of Transformers and Pokémon, of food trends like ramen and artisanal whisky and cutting-edge manga and anime. But it wasn't always this way. The first Japanese products that trickled into the global marketplace after the Second World War inspired derision, not admiration. The three words Made in Japan were a punchline, a synonym for cheap trinkets from a defeated nation.

Infinity Beckoned illuminates a critical period of space history when humans dared an expansive leap into the inner solar system. Jay Gallentine conveys the trials and triumphs of the people on the ground who conceived and engineered the missions that put robotic spacecraft on the heavenly bodies nearest our own.

Do you want to learn about business intelligence but don't feel like reading a boring textbook? In the modern business world, the pace of action continues to quicken. Businesses need to be able to get actionable insights from their data in order to make the right decisions to act rapidly and effectively. In this audiobook, you will be introduced to the concept of business intelligence.

In recent years, techno-scientific progress has started to utterly transform our world - changing it almost beyond recognition. In this extraordinary new audiobook, renowned philosopher Slavoj Zizek turns to look at the brave new world of Big Tech, revealing how, with each new wave of innovation, we find ourselves moving closer and closer to a bizarrely literal realisation of Marx's prediction that 'all that is solid melts into air'.

Engineering is everywhere, from the Large Hadron Collider to invisibly small circuits on silicon chips. The 50 Greatest Engineers celebrates the great achievements that have been made through the ages, containing profiles of the best-known and most innovative engineers of all time.

If you can't trust those in charge, who can you trust? From government to business, banks to media, trust in institutions is at an all-time low, leading to a worldwide upsurge of anti-establishment movements. But this isn't the age of distrust - far from it. In this revolutionary book, world-renowned trust expert Rachel Botsman reveals that we are at the tipping point of one of the biggest social transformations in human history. Millions exchange cryptocurrency online, or get in the cars of unknown Uber drivers. This is the age of distributed trust.

Katrine Marçal’s Mother of Invention is a fascinating examination of business, technology, and innovation through a feminist lens. Marçal takes us on a tour of the global economy, arguing that gendered assumptions dictate which businesses get funding, how we value work, and how we trace human progress. And it carries a powerful message: If we upend our biases, we can unleash our full potential, tackling climate change and wielding technology to become more human, rather than less.

Why don’t we know the name of John Atanasoff as well as we know those of Alan Turing and John von Neumann? Because he never patented his computing machine, and because the developers of the far-better-known ENIAC almost certainly stole critical ideas from him. Jane Smiley tells the quintessentially American story of John Atanasoff with technical clarity and narrative drive, making the race to develop digital computing as gripping as a real-life techno-thriller.

In December 2009, Google began customizing its search results for each user. Instead of giving you the most broadly popular result, Google now tries to predict what you are most likely to click on. According to MoveOn.org board president Eli Pariser, Google's change in policy is symptomatic of the most significant shift to take place on the Web in recent years: the rise of personalization.

With far-reaching implications, this urgent treatise promises to revolutionize our understanding of what it means to be human in the digital age. We used to say "seeing is believing"; now googling is believing. With 24/7 access to nearly all of the world's information at our fingertips, we no longer trek to the library or the encyclopedia shelf in search of answers. We just open our browsers, type in a few keywords, and wait for the information to come to us.

Navigate the ethical and legal complexities of our rapidly evolving technological landscape with this essential guidebook for professionals across all sectors. Technology is transforming our world in unprecedented ways, opening up new possibilities and challenges for professionals in various fields and domains. These challenges in technology confront us all with a variety of issues from technology ethics perspective. How can you make ethical and legal decisions that align with your values and responsibilities? How can you leverage technology to create value and impact in your work and society?

We're living through what is arguably one of the most exciting, confusing, and powerful social moments in the history of humanity, the shift from the Digital Age to the Virtual Age. This shift is being driven by technology, and the people who are leading it are the ones who know it best: the Virtual Natives. This book will introduce you to the Virtual Native cohort and mindset, decipher their socio-cultural and economic experiences, and unpack their expectations of companies looking to engage, market, or employ them.

This audiobook explains why AI is unique, what legal and ethical problems it could cause, and how we can address them. It argues that AI is unlike any other previous technology, owing to its ability to take decisions independently and unpredictably. This gives rise to three issues: responsibility - who is liable if AI causes harm; rights - the disputed moral and pragmatic grounds for granting AI legal personality; and the ethics surrounding the decision-making of AI.

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.

Dozens of times per day, we all interact with intelligent machines that are constantly learning from the wealth of data now available to them. These machines are remaking the world of the 21st century in the same way that the Industrial Revolution remade the world of the 19th century. AIQ is based on a simple premise: If you want to understand the modern world, then you have to know a little bit of the mathematical language spoken by intelligent machines. AIQ will teach listeners that language - but in an unconventional way, anchored in stories rather than mathematics.