Computer History

"See for yourself!" was the clarion call of the 1600s. Natural philosophers threw off the yoke of ancient authority, peered at nature with microscopes and telescopes, and ignited the scientific revolution. Artists investigated nature with lenses and created paintings filled with realistic effects of light and shadow. The hub of this optical innovation was the small Dutch city of Delft.

Once relegated to the fringes of society, transhumanism (the use of technology to enhance human intellectual and physical capability) is now poised to enter our cultural mainstream. It has found adherents in Silicon Valley billionaires Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis. Google has entered the picture, establishing a bio-tech subsidiary aimed at solving the problem of aging. In To Be a Machine, journalist Mark O'Connell takes a headlong dive into this burgeoning movement.

Over the past five decades, the tech industry has grown into one of the most important sectors of the global economy, and Silicon Valley - replete with sprawling office parks, sky-high rents, and countless self-made millionaires - is home to many of its key players. But the origins of Silicon Valley and the tech sector are much humbler. At a time when tech companies’ influence continues to grow, The Big Score chronicles how they began.

Microsoft commands the high ground of the information superhighway by owning the operating systems and basic applications programs that run on hundreds of millions of computers around the world. Beyond the unquestioned genius and vision of Bill Gates, what accounts for Microsoft's astounding success? Drawing on almost two years of on-site observation at Microsoft headquarters, eminent scientists Michael A. Cusumano and Richard W. Selby reveal many of Microsoft's innermost secrets.

From facial recognition—capable of checking us onto flights or identifying undocumented residents—to automated decision systems that inform everything from who gets loans to who receives bail, each of us moves through a world determined by data-empowered algorithms. But these technologies didn't just appear: they are part of a history that goes back centuries, from the census enshrined in the US Constitution to the birth of eugenics in Victorian Britain to the development of Google search.

As a technology pioneer at MIT and as the leader of three successful start-ups, Kevin Ashton experienced firsthand the all-consuming challenge of creating something new. Now, in a tour-de-force narrative 20 years in the making, Ashton leads us on a journey through humanity's greatest creations to uncover the surprising truth behind who creates and how they do it.

Barely 50 years ago a computer was a gargantuan, vastly expensive thing that only a handful of scientists had ever seen. The world's brightest engineers were stymied in their quest to make these machines small and affordable until the solution finally came from two ingenious young Americans. Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce hit upon the stunning discovery that would make possible the silicon microchip, a work that would ultimately earn Kilby the Nobel Prize for physics in 2000.

When a bolt of lightning ignited a hilltop in the sleepy town of Yarnell, Arizona, in June of 2013, setting off a blaze that would grow into one of the deadliest fires in American history, the 20 men who made up the Granite Mountain Hotshots sprang into action. An elite crew trained to combat the most challenging wildfires, the Granite Mountain Hotshots were a ragtag family crisscrossing the American West and wherever else the fires took them. The Hotshots were loyal to one another and dedicated to the tough job they had.

In the tradition of Guns, Germs, and Steel, Enlightenment Now, and Sapiens, Michael Magoon shows us that by learning from the past, we can let go of our negative attitudes about the present, and change our world for the better. For virtually all of history, humanity was trapped in poverty by geographical constraints. Fortunately for us, a few societies invented the five keys to progress (productive agriculture, cities, decentralization of power, export industries, and fossil fuels), laying the foundations for our current progress.

Sociologist Felicia Wu Song has spent years considering the personal and collective dynamics of living in digital ecosystems. In this book she combines psychological, neurological, and sociological insights with theological reflection to explore two major questions: What kind of people are we becoming with personal technologies in hand? And who do we really want to be? Song unpacks the soft tyranny of the digital age, including the values embedded in our apps and the economic systems that drive our habits and their subtle yet pervasive effects.

With Expand: Stretching the Future By Design, authors Jens Martin Skibsted, a multiple-award-winning designer, entrepreneur, and design philosopher, and Christian Bason, political scientist and CEO of the Danish Design Centre, take listeners beyond "design thinking" to challenge current habits and carve out new space for more sustainable innovation. From transforming the ways we do business and reimagining health care, to creating planet-restoring housing and humanizing our digital lives in an age of AI, Expand explores how expansive thinking across six key areas.

David Auerbach’s exploration of the phenomenon he has identified as the meganet begins with a simple, startling revelation: There is no hand on the tiller of some of the largest global digital forces that influence our daily lives: from corporate sites such as Facebook, Amazon, Google, YouTube, Instagram, and Reddit to the burgeoning metaverse encompassing cryptocurrencies and online gaming to government systems such as China’s Social Credit System and India’s Aadhaar.

Today, not only is everything digital getting faster, cheaper, and smaller at an exponential rate, we also have the Internet. When these two revolutions - one in technology and the other in communications - joined, an explosive force was unleashed that changed the very nature of innovation. And with any change, we have seen many strategic blunders and extraordinary learning curves along the way.

Descubre los secretos de la tecnología con el primer libro del divulgador de informática más famoso de Hispanoamérica. Piénsalo: gracias a los avances tecnológicos podemos hablar con alguien que esté a miles de kilómetros, predecir el tiempo, cruzar el planeta en cuestión de horas, conocer nuestro estado de salud, curar enfermedades graves, acceder al instante a más información de la que nunca seremos capaces de leer... ¡Si incluso hemos conseguido hacer que las máquinas aprendan!

In Antisocial Media, Siva Vaidhyanathan explains how Facebook devolved from an innocent social site hacked together by Harvard students into a force that, while it may make personal life just a little more pleasurable, makes democracy a lot more challenging.

If you buy a book at the bookstore, you own it. You can take it home, scribble in the margins, put it on the shelf, lend it to a friend, or sell it at a garage sale. But is the same thing true for the eBooks or other digital goods you buy? Retailers and copyright holders argue that you don't own those purchases, you merely license them. That means your eBook vendor can delete the book from your device without warning or explanation - as Amazon deleted Orwell's 1984 from the Kindles of surprised readers.

"La Guerra De Los Chips" es una fascinante inmersión en la nueva batalla que define el poder global en el siglo XXI: el dominio de los microchips. Más que simples componentes electrónicos, los chips son el corazón de todo —desde teléfonos inteligentes y automóviles hasta sistemas de defensa militar y redes de inteligencia artificial.

Throughout human history, certain innovations have redefined the trajectory of civilization, propelling societies into new paradigms of thought, productivity, and interaction. This book explores ten transformative milestones in the history of business and technology, each representing a quantum leap that revolutionized the way we live, work, and connect.

"AI Ethics" offers a comprehensive exploration of the moral principles that should guide the development and deployment of artificial intelligence technologies. The book addresses the urgent need to ensure these technologies are aligned with ethical standards in an era where AI systems are becoming increasingly integrated into various aspects of society. This book provides a roadmap for understanding how AI can be innovative and ethical by examining the foundational ethical frameworks.

A richly detailed and dramatic account of one of the greatest achievements of humankind. At 9:32 A.M. on July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 rocket launched in the presence of more than a million spectators who had gathered to witness a truly historic event. It carried Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Mike Collins to the last frontier of human imagination: the moon.