Showing titles in History & Culture

Named a Best Book of 2019 by NPR “How might we mitigate losses caused by shortsightedness? Bina Venkataraman, a former climate adviser to the Obama administration, brings a storyteller’s eye to this question. . . . She is also deeply informed about the relevant science.” —The New York...

Eighteen billion Wi-Fi devices are in use around the world, with four billion more added every year. Connecting everyone to everything, it is central to our lives today. How did this happen? Beyond Everywhere is the surprising story in its entirety: the techno/political conflicts at its birth, the battles against competing technologies as it was being nurtured, and the international diplomatic intrigue as it spread across the planet. This vivid narrative about the people who gave Wi-Fi to the world is told with humor, insight, and charm by one of Wi-Fi's key developers.

Early True Believers: The Untold Story of Silicon Alley is a 1990s saga of ambition and innovation set in Manhattan’s Silicon Alley, a swath of downtown that served as New York City’s nerve center of tech entrepreneurship. The series features the stories of a forgotten cohort of early internet visionaries, countercultural social networks, the digital gold rush, and the lavish events that came with it, including one held in an underground Tribeca bunker that abruptly ended in a police raid—a harbinger of the upheaval to come.

This book examines the transformation of human intimacy as it evolves alongside shifts in culture, the human body, and technology. It follows the path of desire from the age of silence and repression to the modern world of artificial intelligence and virtual relationships—a journey that moves from secrecy to openness, from shame to understanding, from wild, consuming passion to calm, conscious connection.

Endless terror. Refugee waves. An unfixable global economy. Surprising election results. New billion-dollar fortunes. Miracle medical advances. What if they were all connected? What if you could understand why? The Seventh Sense is the story of what all of today's successful figures see and feel...

In Growing Up Social, Gary Chapman and Arlene Pellicane will empower you with the necessary tools to make positive changes starting today. Through stories, wit, and wisdom, you’ll discover how to take back your home from an overdependence on screens. Plus, you'll learn to teach the five A+ skills that every healthy child needs to master: affection, appreciation, anger management, apology, and attention.

Recoding History: The Audacious Women Who Shaped Our Digital World is an immersive look into the lives of some of computer history's most ingenious and audacious women. Pulling from the Computer History Museum’s archives and hosted by Reshma Saujani, the founder of Girls Who Code, listeners will learn and laugh along with these great minds as they recount their stories in their own words.

The Internet of Money by Andreas M. Antonopoulos contains 11 of his most inspiring and thought-provoking talks, including: Introduction to Bitcoin; Blockchain vs Bullshit; Fake News, Fake Money; Currency Wars; Bubble Boy and the Sewer Rat; Rocket Science and Ethereum's Killer App; and many more!

As all aspects of our social and informational lives increasingly migrate online, the line between what is "real" and what is digitally fabricated grows ever thinne rand that fake content has undeniable real-world consequences. A History of Fake Things on the Internet takes the long view of how advances in technology brought us to the point where faked texts, images, and video content are nearly indistinguishable from what is authentic or true.

The flight of Apollo 11 was a triumph of human endeavor, persistence, and technology, one of the greatest achievements in human history. This book begins with the mission that sent Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin to the moon, then follows American spaceflight through the harrowing rescue of Apollo 13 before moving on to the successful joint Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975.

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.

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...

This book presents a timely and significant addition to the ongoing discourse around the ethical implications of AI in general, as well as the new and disruptive AI technologies, such as generative AI platforms like ChatGPT.

The Secret Science of Games is an accessible and entertaining guide to the hidden role of science in making games more fun. User experience (UX) research is a vital part of the story of how video games have become a cultural juggernaut, but game developers generally don’t speak publicly about how data shapes game design and game development.

What will the world look like in 2050? In The Future of Humanity, author Sara Baizek explores the profound transformations that will shape our lives in the coming decades. From artificial intelligence and biotechnology to education, climate adaptation, and the exploration of space, this book examines how humanity is being reshaped by innovation, challenges, and opportunities. Drawing on history, current trends, and forward-looking analysis, Baizek presents a vivid picture of tomorrow’s society.

The idea that human history is approaching a "singularity" - that ordinary humans will someday be overtaken by artificially intelligent machines or cognitively enhanced biological intelligence, or both - has moved from the realm of science fiction to serious debate. Some singularity theorists predict that if the field of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to develop at its current dizzying rate, the singularity could come about in the middle of the present century.

This audiobook explains why AI is unique, what legal and ethical problems it could cause, and how we can address them. It argues that AI is unlike any other previous technology, owing to its ability to take decisions independently and unpredictably. This gives rise to three issues: responsibility - who is liable if AI causes harm; rights - the disputed moral and pragmatic grounds for granting AI legal personality; and the ethics surrounding the decision-making of AI.

The Internet and smartphone are just the latest in a 250-year-long cycle of disruption that has continuously changed the way we live, the way we work, and the way we interact. The coming Augmented Age, however, promises a level of disruption, behavioral shifts, and changes that are unparalleled. While consumers today are camping outside of an Apple store waiting to be one of the first to score a new Apple Watch or iPhone, the next generation of wearables will be able to predict if we're likely to have a heart attack and recommend a course of action.

Sexual activity is central to our very existence; it shapes how we think, how we act and how we live. With advances in technology come machines that may one day think independently. What will happen to us when we form close relationships with these intelligent systems? Sex robots are here and here to stay, and more are coming. This audiobook explores how the emerging and future development of sexual companion robots might affect us and the society in which we live. It explores the social changes arising from emerging technologies and our relationships with the machines that may someday care for us and about us.

In the course of our enduring quest for knowledge about ourselves and our universe, we haven't found answers to one of our most fundamental questions: Does life exist anywhere else in the universe? Ten years and billions of dollars in the making, the Mars rover Curiosity is poised toanswer this all-important question.