Computer Science 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.

The dramatic, untold story of the brilliant team whose feats of innovation and engineering created the world’s first digital electronic computer—decrypting the Nazis’ toughest code, helping bring an end to WWII, and ushering in the information age. Winner, Institute of Electrical and...

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.

In Decoding the Heavens, Jo Marchant tells for the first time the full story of the 100-year quest to decipher the ancient Greek computer known as the Antikythera Mechanism. Along the way she unearths a diverse cast of remarkable characters and explores the deep roots of modern technology in ancient Greece and the medieval European and Islamic worlds. At its heart, this is an epic adventure and mystery, a book that challenges our assumptions about technology through the ages.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, a diverse group of teachers and students working together on academic computing systems conducted many of the activities we now recognize as personal and social computing. Joy Rankin draws on detailed records to explore how users exchanged messages, programmed music and poems, fostered communities, and developed computer games like The Oregon Trail. These unsung pioneers helped shape our digital world, just as much as the inventors, garage hobbyists, and eccentric billionaires of Palo Alto.

In The Paradox of Progress, Dr. Michael M. Karch delves into the ethical complexities of AI’s rapid evolution. Drawing from a career spanning three decades in robotics, orthopedic surgery, and international disaster response, Dr. Karch investigates AI’s far-reaching impact and initiates critical discussion about its duality. This is a compelling exploration through historical precedents of progress and AI’s challenges today, including fears of data bias, deep fakes, technological hegemony, and job displacement.

Authors Gordon Bell and Jim Gemmell tap their experiences with the MyLifeBits project at Microsoft Research for this extraordinary book. What if you could remember everything? With today’s technology, that notion becomes more realistic each day. Bell and Gemmell explain what it could all mean.

Sealab is the underwater Right Stuff: the compelling story of how a U.S. Navy program sought to develop the marine equivalent of the space station - and forever changed man's relationship to the sea. While NASA was trying to put a man on the moon, the U.S. Navy launched a series of daring experiments to prove that divers could live and work from a sea-floor base.

Taking listeners back to the days of TaB cola, dot matrix printers, and digging through the couch for just one more quarter, Alex Rubens combines his knowledge of the tech industry and experience as a gaming journalist to conjure the wild silicon frontier of the 8-bit ’80s. 8-Bit Apocalypse: The Untold Story of Atari's Missile Command offers the first in-depth, personal history of an era for which fans have a lot of nostalgia.

Crystal Fire is a tale of the human factors in technology; the pride and jealousies coupled with scientific and economic aspiration that led to the creation of modern microelectronics and ignited the greatest technological explosion in history.

It was a time of bold new technology, historic moments, and international jousting on the final frontier. But it was also a time of human drama, of moments less public but no less dramatic in the lives of those who made the golden age of space flight happen. These are the moments and the lives that Into That Silent Sea captures, a book that tells the intimate stories of the men and women, American and Russian, who made the space race their own and gave the era its compelling character.

Acclaimed futurist, author, and digital strategist Bernard Marr delivers a compelling and engaging discussion of the technologies driving the impending—and ongoing—transformation of the internet, including blockchain, augmented reality (AR), and more. In the book, you'll explore the risks and opportunities presented by these game-changing techs and how they might impact you, your organization, and community.

‘It didn’t matter that they were now three miles beyond their target site, that communications were dropping out and that they were running low on fuel. All that mattered to Neil as he searched for a safe spot to land was that boulders littered the surface below. “Thirty seconds,” called mission control. In truth, the flight controllers were now no more than spectators, just like everybody else. No more needed to be said. It was down to Armstrong

Virtually Human explores what the not-too-distant future will look like when cyberconsciousness - simulation of the human brain via software and computer technology - becomes part of our daily lives. Meet Bina48, the world's most sentient robot, commissioned by Martine Rothblatt and created by Hanson Robotics.

On October 4, 1957, a time of Cold War paranoia, the Soviet Union secretly launched the Earth's first artificial moon. No bigger than a basketball, the tiny satellite was powered by a car battery. Yet, for all its simplicity, Sputnik stunned the world.

Today, Artificial Intelligence seems mystical and magical to most people. While this wave of change will touch every aspect of our daily lives, most of us still do not understand AI’s capabilities, limitations, or history. In this book, Dr. Alok Aggarwal – one of the early innovators and developers in this field – sets out to demystify Artificial Intelligence by explaining the science and engineering in non-technical terms we can all understand.

Kenneth is senior director of research and innovation at CoreAVI and chief technology officer at Squint AI. His work focuses on the intersection of artificial intelligence and determinism, enabling neural networks to execute in safety critical systems. Kenneth has co-authored two articles in the scholarly journal Machine Learning with Applications and several white papers for different publications, including Embedded Computing Design. He also holds several patents under CoreAVI’s auspices.

Veteran video-game designer Dustin Hansen takes YA listeners on a fun and fascinating trip through the brief but intensely innovative history of video games. Find out about the fast and furious growth and evolution of video games (including how they are quickly taking over the world!) by looking at some of the most popular, innovative, and influential games ever, from Pong, the very first arcade game ever, to modern hits like Uncharted.

Plastic built the modern world. Where would we be without bike helmets, baggies, toothbrushes, and pacemakers? But a century into our love affair with plastic, we're starting to realize it's not such a healthy relationship. Plastics draw dwindling fossil fuels, leach harmful chemicals, litter landscapes, and destroy marine life. As journalist Susan Freinkel points out in this engaging and eye-opening book, we're nearing a crisis point.

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017 One of the best books of the year by The New York Times, LA Times, and NPR Franklin Foer reveals the existential threat posed by big tech, and in his brilliant polemic gives us the toolkit to fight their pervasive influence. Over the past few...