Social Technology

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 Eisenhower's Sputnik Moment, Yanek Mieczkowski examines the early history of America's space program, reassessing Eisenhower's leadership. He details how Eisenhower approved breakthrough satellites, supported a new civilian space agency, signed a landmark science education law, and fostered improved relations with scientists. Offering a fast-paced account of this Cold War episode, Mieczkowski demonstrates that Eisenhower built an impressive record in space and on earth.

For more than a century, the interplay between private, investor-owned electric utilities and government regulators has shaped the electric power industry in the United States. Provision of an essential service to largely dependent consumers invited government oversight and ever more sophisticated market intervention. The industry has sought to manage, coopt, and profit from government regulation. In The Power Brokers, Jeremiah Lambert maps this complex interaction from the late 19th century to the present day.

From the simple to the intricate and the audacious to the absurd, Adam Kucharski reveals the long and tangled history between betting and science and explains why gambling continues to generate insights into luck and decision making today. Covering exploits and ideas from across the globe, he meets the teams behind hedge funds that capitalize on inaccurate sports betting odds and explains how PhD-level pundits are using methods originally developed for the US nuclear program to predict sports results.

The digital age is in the business of commodifying our attention. The technologies of our day are determined to keep us scrolling and swiping at all costs, plugged into a feedback loop of impatience, comparison, outrage, and contempt. Blind to the dangers, we enjoy its temporary pleasures, unaware of the damage to our souls. Jay Kim's Analog Church explored the ways the digital age and its values affect the life of the church. In Analog Christian, he asks the same question of Christian discipleship.

This helpful, plain-English guide provides need-to-know information on how to choose the right system, assure patients of the security of their records, and implement an EHR in such a way that it causes minimal disruption to the daily demands of a hospital or clinic.

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.

Do you hate writing and wish it was easier? Would podcasting, blogging, course creation, video creation, and presenting be even slightly easier if you had a step-by-step system to follow? That's why Robert Plank has created, just for you, WWHW, Why, What, How-to, What-If: Easily Create a Book, Podcast, or Online Course in Just a Few Easy-to-Follow Steps.

Richard Ryan, a seasoned tech insider, unveils the hidden dynamics between you and Big Tech in The Warrior’s Garden. Rather than a call to abandon all devices, this book is a challenge to recognize how platforms like YouTube and Facebook subtly shape behavior and monopolize attention. Richard guides you through a personal assessment of your digital habits, offering tools to reclaim your time and mental space. With insights drawn from Richard’s years of experience in tech and media, The Warrior’s Garden empowers you to navigate the digital landscape with awareness and intention.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, digital technologies had become deeply embedded in children’s lives, despite a growing body of research detailing the harms of excessive immersion in the unregulated, powerfully seductive, profit-driven world of the “kid-tech” industry. In Who’s Raising the Kids? Linn—one of the world’s leading experts on the impact of Big Tech and big business on children—explores the roots and consequences of this monumental shift toward a digitized, commercialized childhood, focusing on kids’ values, relationships, and learning.

From the moment there was an “online,” there was sex online. The famous test image used by software engineers to develop formats like the jpeg was “Lena,” taken from Playboy’s November 1972 centerfold. Early bulletin boards and multi-user domains quickly came to serve their members...

Humanity is on an astronomical trajectory and according to aerospace professional and popular science communicator Kellie Gerardi, that future doesn’t rest solely on the shoulders of rocket scientists. Gerardi’s non-traditional path in the space industry shows us that humanity’s next giant leap will require the contributions of artists, engineers, and everyone in between. Gerardi takes us on a tour of this unique window in history and offers encouragement and advice for anyone who has ever dreamed of the stars and galaxies far, far away.

The dream of a universal translation device goes back many decades, long before Douglas Adams's fictional Babel fish provided this service in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Since the advent of computers, research has focused on the design of digital machine translation tools - computer programs capable of automatically translating a text from a source language to a target language. This has become one of the most fundamental tasks of artificial intelligence.

For astronaut Ron Garan, living on the International Space Station was a powerful, transformative experience - one that he believes holds the key to solving our problems here on Earth. On space walks and through windows, Garan was struck by the stunning beauty of the Earth from space but sobered by knowing how much needed to be done to help this troubled planet.

La digitalización avanza inexorablemente. Aturdidos por el frenesí de la comunicación y la información, nos sentimos impotentes ante el tsunami de datos que despliega fuerzas destructivas y deformantes.

Sleep is the most important part of anyone’s journey to a healthy and happy life, and with this book you can learn how to fix your sleep schedule and recover precious hours of relaxation. If you're like most people, odds are you aren't getting enough sleep. Thanks to shifts in our culture...

In our rapidly evolving digital age, mastering the landscape is more than just beneficial—it's essential. "Social Media Marketing for Beginners 2024" is crafted specifically with beginners in mind, providing a clear path through the complexity of social media marketing. This book offers step-by-step strategies, practical tips, and comprehensive case studies to elevate you from a novice to a marketing maestro swiftly.

Have iPads replaced conversation at the dinner table? What do infants observe when their parents are on their smartphones? Should you be your child's Facebook friend? As the focus of family has turned to the glow of the screen—children constantly texting their friends, parents working online...

Isaac Kronenberg does it again with another fabulous blogging book that goes above and beyond anything else out there! This latest book by Kronenberg is the most advanced blogging book on the market, teaching nothing but the most effective blogging monetization strategies that exist to get your blog from zero to $2000 a month in 90 days.

Survival of the fittest or survival of the nicest? Since the dawn of time man has contemplated the mystery of altruism, but it was Darwin who posed the question most starkly. From the selfless ant to the stinging bee to the man laying down his life for a stranger, evolution has yielded a goodness that in theory should never be. Set against the sweeping tale of 150 years of scientific attempts to explain kindness, The Price of Altruism tells for the first time the moving story of the eccentric American genius George Price (1922-1975), as he strives to answer evolution's greatest riddle.