Technopoly

The Surrender of Culture to Technology

Neil Postman

A witty, often terrifying that chronicles our transformation into a society that is shaped by technology—from the acclaimed author of Amusing Ourselves to Death. "A provocative book ... A tool for fighting back against the tools that run our lives." —Dallas Morning News The story of our society's transformation into a Technopoly: a society that no longer merely uses technology as a support system but instead is shaped by it—with radical consequences for the meanings of politics, art, education, intelligence, and truth.

Diffusion of Innovations, 5th Edition

Everett M. Rogers

Now in its fifth edition, Diffusion of Innovations is a classic work on the spread of new ideas. In this renowned book, Everett M. Rogers, professor and chair of the Department of Communication & Journalism at the University of New Mexico, explains how new ideas spread via communication channels over time. Such innovations are initially perceived as uncertain and even risky. To overcome this uncertainty, most people seek out others like themselves who have already adopted the new idea. Thus the diffusion process consists of a few individuals who first adopt an innovation, then spread the word among their circle of acquaintances—a process which typically takes months or years. But there are exceptions: use of the Internet in the 1990s, for example, may have spread more rapidly than any other innovation in the history of humankind. Furthermore, the Internet is changing the very nature of diffusion by decreasing the importance of physical distance between people. The fifth edition addresses the spread of the Internet, and how it has transformed the way human beings communicate and adopt new ideas.

Invisible Women

Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

Caroline Criado Perez

The landmark, prize-winning, international bestselling examination of how a gender gap in data perpetuates bias and disadvantages women. #1 International Bestseller * Winner of the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award * Winner of the Royal Society Science Book Prize Data is fundamental to the modern world. From economic development to health care to education and public policy, we rely on numbers to allocate resources and make crucial decisions. But because so much data fails to take into account gender, because it treats men as the default and women as atypical, bias and discrimination are baked into our systems. And women pay tremendous costs for this insidious bias: in time, in money, and often with their lives. Celebrated feminist advocate Caroline Criado Perez investigates this shocking root cause of gender inequality in Invisible Women. Examining the home, the workplace, the public square, the doctor’s office, and more, Criado Perez unearths a dangerous pattern in data and its consequences on women’s lives. Product designers use a “one-size-fits-all” approach to everything from pianos to cell phones to voice recognition software, when in fact this approach is designed to fit men. Cities prioritize men’s needs when designing public transportation, roads, and even snow removal, neglecting to consider women’s safety or unique responsibilities and travel patterns. And in medical research, women have largely been excluded from studies and textbooks, leaving them chronically misunderstood, mistreated, and misdiagnosed. Built on hundreds of studies in the United States, in the United Kingdom, and around the world, and written with energy, wit, and sparkling intelligence, this is a groundbreaking, highly readable exposé that will change the way you look at the world.

The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies

Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee

The big stories -- The skills of the new machines : technology races ahead -- Moore's law and the second half of the chessboard -- The digitization of just about everything -- Innovation : declining or recombining? -- Artificial and human intelligence in the second machine age -- Computing bounty -- Beyond GDP -- The spread -- The biggest winners : stars and superstars -- Implications of the bounty and the spread -- Learning to race with machines : recommendations for individuals -- Policy recommendations -- Long-term recommendations -- Technology and the future (which is very different from "technology is the future").

The World Is Flat [Further Updated and Expanded; Release 3.0]

A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

Thomas L. Friedman

Explores globalization, its opportunities for individual empowerment, its achievements at lifting millions out of poverty, and its drawbacks--environmental, social, and political.

Addiction by Design

Machine Gambling in Las Vegas

Natasha Dow Schüll

machines stems from the consumer, the product, or the interplay between the two. --

Blown to Bits

Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion

Harold Abelson, Ken Ledeen, Harry R. Lewis

'Blown to Bits' is about how the digital explosion is changing everything. The text explains the technology, why it creates so many surprises and why things often don't work the way we expect them to. It is also about things the information explosion is destroying: old assumptions about who is really in control of our lives.

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power

Shoshana Zuboff

An exposé of the unprecedented form of power called “surveillance capitalism,” and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control our behavior “Groundbreaking, magisterial, alarming.” – Financial Times The heady optimism of the Internet’s early days has turned dark. Surveillance capitalism has deepened inequality, sown societal chaos, and undermined democracy. The fight for a human future has never been more urgent. Shoshana Zuboff argues that we still have the power to decide what kind of world we want to live in: Will we allow surveillance capitalism to wrap us in its iron cage as it enriches the few and subjugates the many? Or will we demand the rights and laws that place this rogue power under the democratic rule of law? Only democracy can ensure that the vast new capabilities of the digital era are harnessed to the advancement of humanity. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is a deeply original, exquisitely reasoned, and spell binding examination of our emerging information civilization and the life and death choices we face.

Alone Together

Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other

Sherry Turkle

Consider Facebook - it's human contact, only easier to engage with and easier to avoid. Developing technology promises closeness. Sometimes it delivers, but much of our modern life leaves us less connected with people and more connected to simulations of them. In Alone Together, MIT technology and society professor Sherry Turkle explores the power of our new tools and toys to dramatically alter our social lives. It's a nuanced exploration of what we are looking for - and sacrificing - in a world of electronic companions and social networking tools, and an argument that, despite the hand-waving of today's self-described prophets of the future, it will be the next generation who will chart the path between isolation and connectivity.

The Filter Bubble

What The Internet Is Hiding From You

Eli Pariser

Imagine a world where all the news you see is defined by your salary, where you live, and who your friends are. Imagine a world where you never discover new ideas. And where you can't have secrets. Welcome to 2011. Google and Facebook are already feeding you what they think you want to see. Advertisers are following your every click. Your computer monitor is becoming a one-way mirror, reflecting your interests and reinforcing your prejudices. The internet is no longer a free, independent space. It is commercially controlled and ever more personalised. The Filter Bubble reveals how this hidden web is starting to control our lives - and shows what we can do about it.

Software Studies

A Lexicon

Matthew Fuller

This collection of short expository, critical and speculative texts offers a field guide to the cultural, political, social and aesthetic impact of software. Experts from a range of disciplines each take a key topic in software and the understanding of software, such as algorithms and logical structures.

Digital Citizenship

The Internet, Society, and Participation

Karen Mossberger, Caroline J. Tolbert, Ramona S. McNeal

The essential guide to one of the most influential spiritual works ever written. In 1976, a mysterious “Inner Voice” called out to a woman named Helen Schucman, dictating a system of belief that ultimately became A Course in Miracles. This book, totaling 1,333 pages, went on to sell more than two million copies around the world. Its lessons are meant to be digested one at a time; those who study ACIM do so over years, often struggling to progress through its resonant but difficult-to-comprehend truths. Jon Mundy-who knew the Course's founders and the text from the very beginning-is the perfect guide to the book's central tenets. Using passages from ACIM, he illuminates its teachings on such subjects as the self, forgiveness, desire, health, money, addiction, and the afterlife. Through Jon's lively storytelling and in-depth knowledge of the Course's wisdom, readers gain wisdom that might otherwise have taken them a lifetime to grasp.

Where Wizards Stay Up Late

The Origins of the Internet

Katie Hafner, Matthew Lyon

Working around the clock, the IMP Guys met a tight deadline, and the first IMP was installed at UCLA nine months after the contract award.

Virtual States

The Internet and the Boundaries of the Nation-state

Jerry Everard

Virtual Statesexplores the role of the state in a rapidly globalizing, wired society. It presents a theoretical and historical introduction to the internet, its place in both the developed and the developing world, and its impact on society. Although the internet brings out new disparities--between the information rich and the information poor--it also has the potential to break down the boundaries of national identity. Jerry Everard argues that while information technology poses fundamental challenges to the inclusionary/exclusionary processes of state-making, this will not mean the decline but rather the mutation of the state. Everard goes on to look at the different ways in which states react to the wired society, covering issues such as war, censorship and the reactions of those excluded from this society.

Creating the Computer

Government, Industry, and High Technology

Kenneth Flamm

Looks at the technological developments that led to the development of computers, discusses the influence of the military and IBM, and surveys current competition

From Computer Literacy to Informatics Fundamentals

International Conference on Informatics in Secondary Schools -- Evolution and Perspectives, ISSEP 2005, Klagenfurt, Austria, March 30-April 1, 2005, Proceedings

Roland Mittermeir

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Informatics in Secondary Schools - Evolution and Perspectives, ISSEP 2005, held in Klagenfurt, Austria in March/April 2005. The 21 revised full papers presented together with an introduction were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. A broad variety of topics related to teaching informatics in secondary schools is addressed ranging from national experience reports to paedagogical and methodological issues.

The Psychology of the Internet

Patricia Wallace

Delves into the psychological aspects of the virtual world to understand why humans often behave differently in cyberspace.

The Road Ahead

Bill Gates, Nathan Myhrvold, Peter Rinearson

This book describes Bill Gates' view of how emerging technologies will transform human existence in unprecedented ways.

Visions

How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century

Michio Kaku

In a spellbinding narrative that skillfully weaves together cutting-edge research among today's foremost scientists, theoretical physicist Michio Kaku--author of the bestselling book "Hyperspace--presents a bold, exhilarating adventure into the science of tomorrow. In "Visions, Dr. Kaku examines in vivid detail how the three scientific revolutions that profoundly reshaped the twentieth century--the quantum, biogenetic, and computer revolutions--will transform the way we live in the twenty-first century. The fundamental elements of matter and life--the particles of the atom and the nucleus of the cell--have now been decoded, closing one of the great chapters of scientific history. But this is just the preface to an even more far-reaching scientific revolution, as we make the transition from being passive observers of the mysteries of nature to becoming masters of nature, able to manipulate matter, life, and intelligence to remold the world around us. In the first part of "Visions, Dr. Kaku discusses the cyber future, when millions of microprocessors are scattered throughout our environment; when the iron principle that has ruled the computer industry, Moore's Law, finally collapses, forcing scientists to adopt startling new designs like DNA computers and quantum computers; and when artificial intelligence systems finally arrive. In the next section, Dr. Kaku shows how the decoding of DNA will allow us to conquer devastating genetic diseases, defeat many cancers at the molecular level, synthesize new medicines using virtual reality, grow new organs, conquer aging and reshape our genetic inheritance. Finally, he explores how quantum physicists will perfect new ways toharness the cosmic energy of the universe--from molecular machines to supermagnets that may energize a second industrial revolution, to powerful fusion engines that one day may take us to the stars. What makes Michio Kaku's vision of the future of science so compelling and authoritative is that it is based on the groundbreaking research already underway at leading laboratories around the world. Weaving interviews with over 150 scientists--several of them Nobel laureates--into a rich, inspiring narrative, Dr. Kaku reveals the growing consensus among key scientists about how science will likely evolve through the early, middle, and late years of the twenty-first century. An intimate, thrilling tour through the next century of science, "Visions is a riveting, essential map to how scientists will reshape our future.

Net.wars

Wendy Grossman

London-based American journalist Grossman continues her coverage of the Internet by assessing the battles she believes will define its future. Among them are scams, class divisions, privacy, the Communications Decency Act, women online, pornography, hackers and the computer underground, criminals, and sociopaths. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR