History Computer Technology

From author Earl Swift comes the surprising history of the U.S. interstate system, a fascinating route through the dreams, discoveries, and protests that shaped these mighty roads.

Since the Gutenberg Bible first went on sale in 1455, printing has been viewed as one of the highest achievements of human innovation. But the march of progress hasn't been smooth; downright bizarre is more like it. Printer's Error chronicles some of the strangest and most humorous episodes in the history of Western printing. Take, for example, the Gutenberg Bible. While the book is regarded as the first printed work in the Western world, Gutenberg's name doesn't appear anywhere on it.

After Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin dropped out of college and launched Bitcoin Magazine, he wrote the Ethereum white paper, which proposed an open source protocol that would take what Bitcoin did for money and do it for everything else: contracts, social networks, and sharing economies. Now, less than a decade later, his idea is valued at about half a trillion dollars, and it is the foundation for the weird new world of NFT artworks, virtual real estate, and decentralized autonomous organizations.

In this fascinating book, investigative reporter Yasha Levine uncovers the secret origins of the Internet, tracing it back to a Pentagon counterinsurgency surveillance project. With deep research, skilled storytelling, and provocative arguments, Surveillance Valley will change the way you think about the news - and the device on which you read it.

For most of human history the world was a magical and enchanted place ruled by forces beyond our understanding. The rise of science and Descartes's division of mind from world made materialism our ruling paradigm, in the process asking whether our own consciousness—i.e., souls—might be illusions. Now the inexorable rise of technology, with artificial intelligences that surpass our comprehension and control, and the spread of digital metaphors for self-understanding, the core questions of existence urgently require rethinking.

“As Albert Einstein almost certainly never said, everyone is a genius—but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” So begins Katie Spalding’s spunky takedown of the Western canon, and how genius may not be as irrefutably great as we commonly understand. While most of us may never become Einstein, it may surprise you to learn that there’s probably a bunch of stuff you can do that Einstein couldn’t. And, as Spalding shows, the famous prodigies she explores here were quite odd by any definition.

Tech pioneer Chris Dixon has long advocated for a technology that can revive the dream of an open, entrepreneurial internet: blockchain networks. Often dismissed, sometimes vilified, these networks have until recently been dominated by amoral speculators and get-rich-quick schemes. But, more quietly, a group of visionaries have been using them to build the future. In Read Write Own, Dixon draws on 25 years at the vanguard of tech innovation to explore how blockchains will change the internet.

There is a robotics revolution underway. A record 3.1 million robots are working in factories right now, doing everything from assembling computers to packing goods and monitoring air quality and performance. A far greater number of smart machines impact our lives in countless other ways—improving the precision of surgeons, cleaning our homes, extending our reach to distant worlds—and we’re on the cusp of even more exciting opportunities.

In The Alchemy of Us, scientist and science writer Ainissa Ramirez examines eight inventions - clocks, steel rails, copper communication cables, photographic film, light bulbs, hard disks, scientific labware, and silicon chips - and reveals how they shaped the human experience. Ramirez tells the stories of the woman who sold time, the inventor who inspired Edison, and the hotheaded undertaker whose invention pointed the way to the computer.

Silicon Valley has sold us the illusion that artificial intelligence is a frictionless technology that will bring wealth and prosperity to humanity. But hidden beneath this smooth surface lies the grim reality of a precarious global workforce of millions laboring under often appalling conditions to make A.I. possible. This book presents an urgent, riveting investigation of the intricate network that maintains this exploitative system, revealing the untold truth of A.I.

In TechGnosis - a cult classic now updated and reissued with a new afterword - Erik Davis argues that while the realms of the digital and the spiritual may seem worlds apart, esoteric and religious impulses have in fact always permeated (and sometimes inspired) technological communication. Davis uncovers startling connections between such seemingly disparate topics as electricity and alchemy; online roleplaying games and religious and occult practices; virtual reality and gnostic mythology; programming languages and Kabbalah.

It was once a utopian dream. But today’s internet, despite its conveniences and connectivity, is the primary cause of a pervasive unease that has taken hold in the U.S. and other democratic societies. The roots of this crisis, argue Frank McCourt and Michael Casey, lie in the prevailing order of the internet. In plain but forceful language, the authors—a civic entrepreneur and an acclaimed journalist—show how a centralized system controlled by a small group of for-profit entities has set this catastrophe in motion and eroded our personhood.

The New York Times best seller about a noted tech venture capitalist, early mentor to Mark Zuckerberg, and Facebook investor, who wakes up to the serious damage Facebook is doing to our society—and sets out to try to stop it.

As thinking machines make more decisions on our behalf, they can enrich, enable, and influence our lives. The increasing use of AI raises critical questions about our values, cultures, economies, and power relationships. And the answers may depend upon your race, gender, age, behavior, and nationality. In clear and accessible prose, Olaf Groth and Mark Nitzberg explore the history of intelligent technology, revealing how close we are to designing machines that have some sort of consciousness - and that we must now decide how to give those machines a conscience.

Most people think about technology as something we created to serve us, but we may well be getting to the point where we are the ones who're serving an ever more sophisticated technology. With pragmatism and optimism, Dr Tim Sharp, aka Dr Happy, outlines strategies and tools to build your confidence to positively cope with the modern world.

Digital Apollo examines the design and execution of each of the six Apollo moon landings, drawing on transcripts and data telemetry from the flights, astronaut interviews, and NASA's extensive archives. Mindell's exploration of how human pilots and automated systems worked together to achieve the ultimate in flight - a lunar landing - traces and reframes the debate over the future of humans and automation in space.

This riveting biography from the American Bar Association visits the spectacular life of Edwin Land, breakthrough inventor. At the time of his death, he stood third on the list of our most prolific inventors, behind only Thomas Edison and one of Edison's colleagues. Land's most famous achievement was the creation of a revolutionary film-and-camera system that could produce a photographic print moments after the picture was taken.

Too many CEOs tell a simple story about the future of work: If a machine can do what you do, your job will be automated. They envision everyone from doctors to soldiers rendered superfluous by ever-more-powerful AI. They offer stark alternatives: Make robots, or be replaced by them. Another story is possible. In virtually every walk of life, robotic systems can make labor more valuable, not less. Frank Pasquale tells the story of nurses, teachers, designers, and others who partner with technologists, rather than meekly serving as data sources for their computerized replacements.

Nothing is harder to do these days than nothing. But in a world where our value is determined by our 24/7 data productivity...doing nothing may be our most important form of resistance. So argues artist and critic Jenny Odell in this field guide to doing nothing (at least as capitalism defines it). Odell sees our attention as the most precious - and overdrawn - resource we have.

Bridging the gap between tech mania and the experience of being inside the human body, Dawn of the New Everything is a look at what it means to be human at a moment of unprecedented technological possibility. Through a fascinating look back over his life in technology, Jaron Lanier, an interdisciplinary scientist and father of the term virtual reality, exposes VR's ability to illuminate and amplify our understanding of our species and gives listeners a new perspective on how the brain and body connect to the world.