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Dawn of the Code War: America's Battle Against Russia, China, and the Rising Global Cyber Threat
Carlin, John P.
(Hardcover)
The inside story of how America's enemies launched a cyber war against us - and how we've learned to fight back.With each passing year, the internet-linked attacks on America's interests have grown in both frequency and severity. Overmatched by our military, countries like North Korea, China, Iran, and Russia have found us vulnerable in cyberspace. The "Code War" is upon us.In this dramatic book, former Assistant Attorney General John P. Carlin takes readers to the front lines of a global but little-understood fight as the Justice Department and the FBI chases down hackers, online terrorist recruiters, and spies. Today, as our entire economy goes digital, from banking to manufacturing to transportation, the potential targets for our enemies multiply. This firsthand account is both a remarkable untold story and a warning of dangers yet to come.
Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are
Stephens-Davidowitz, Seth
(Hardcover)
Blending the informed analysis of The Signal and the Noise with the instructive iconoclasm of Think Like a Freak, a fascinating, illuminating, and witty look at what the vast amounts of information now instantly available to us reveals about ourselves and our world - provided we ask the right questions.By the end of an average day in the early twenty-first century, human beings searching the internet will amass eight trillion gigabytes of data. This staggering amount of information - unprecedented in history - can tell us a great deal about who we are - the fears, desires, and behaviors that drive us, and the conscious and unconscious decisions we make. From the profound to the mundane, we can gain astonishing knowledge about the human psyche that less than twenty years ago, seemed unfathomable.Everybody Lies offers fascinating, surprising, and sometimes laugh-out-loud insights into everything from economics to ethics to sports to race to sex, gender and more, all drawn from the world of big data. What percentage of white voters didn’t vote for Barack Obama because he’s black? Does where you go to school effect how successful you are in life? Do parents secretly favor boy children over girls? Do violent films affect the crime rate? Can you beat the stock market? How regularly do we lie about our sex lives and who’s more self-conscious about sex, men or women?Investigating these questions and a host of others, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz offers revelations that can help us understand ourselves and our lives better. Drawing on studies and experiments on how we really live and think, he demonstrates in fascinating and often funny ways the extent to which all the world is indeed a lab. With conclusions ranging from strange-but-true to thought-provoking to disturbing, he explores the power of this digital truth serum and its deeper potential - revealing biases deeply embedded within us, information we can use to change our culture, and the questions we’re afraid to ask that might be essential to our health - both emotional and physical. All of us are touched by big data everyday, and its influence is multiplying. Everybody Lies challenges us to think differently about how we see it and the world.
Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are (Large Print)
Stephens-Davidowitz, Seth
(Paperback)
Blending the informed analysis of The Signal and the Noise with the instructive iconoclasm of Think Like a Freak, a fascinating, illuminating, and witty look at what the vast amounts of information now instantly available to us reveals about ourselves and our world - provided we ask the right questions.By the end of an average day in the early twenty-first century, human beings searching the internet will amass eight trillion gigabytes of data. This staggering amount of information - unprecedented in history - can tell us a great deal about who we are - the fears, desires, and behaviors that drive us, and the conscious and unconscious decisions we make. From the profound to the mundane, we can gain astonishing knowledge about the human psyche that less than twenty years ago, seemed unfathomable.Everybody Lies offers fascinating, surprising, and sometimes laugh-out-loud insights into everything from economics to ethics to sports to race to sex, gender and more, all drawn from the world of big data. What percentage of white voters didn’t vote for Barack Obama because he’s black? Does where you go to school effect how successful you are in life? Do parents secretly favor boy children over girls? Do violent films affect the crime rate? Can you beat the stock market? How regularly do we lie about our sex lives and who’s more self-conscious about sex, men or women?Investigating these questions and a host of others, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz offers revelations that can help us understand ourselves and our lives better. Drawing on studies and experiments on how we really live and think, he demonstrates in fascinating and often funny ways the extent to which all the world is indeed a lab. With conclusions ranging from strange-but-true to thought-provoking to disturbing, he explores the power of this digital truth serum and its deeper potential - revealing biases deeply embedded within us, information we can use to change our culture, and the questions we’re afraid to ask that might be essential to our health - both emotional and physical. All of us are touched by big data everyday, and its influence is multiplying. Everybody Lies challenges us to think differently about how we see it and the world.
Beyond the Valley
Srinivasan, Ramesh
(Hardcover)
How to repair the disconnect between designers and users, producers and consumers, and tech elites and the rest of us: toward a more democratic internet.In this provocative book, Ramesh Srinivasan describes the internet as both an enabler of frictionless efficiency and a dirty tangle of politics, economics, and other inefficient, inharmonious human activities. We may love the immediacy of Google search results, the convenience of buying from Amazon, and the elegance and power of our Apple devices, but it's a one-way, top-down process. We're not asked for our input, or our opinions—only for our data. The internet is brought to us by wealthy technologists in Silicon Valley and China. It's time, Srinivasan argues, that we think in terms beyond the Valley.Srinivasan focuses on the disconnection he sees between designers and users, producers and consumers, and tech elites and the rest of us. The recent Cambridge Analytica and Russian misinformation scandals exemplify the imbalance of a digital world that puts profits before inclusivity and democracy. In search of a more democratic internet, Srinivasan takes us to the mountains of Oaxaca, East and West Africa, China, Scandinavia, North America, and elsewhere, visiting the “design labs” of rural, low-income, and indigenous people around the world. He talks to a range of high-profile public figures—including Elizabeth Warren, David Axelrod, Eric Holder, Noam Chomsky, Lawrence Lessig, and the founders of Reddit, as well as community organizers, labor leaders, and human rights activists.. To make a better internet, Srinivasan says, we need a new ethic of diversity, openness, and inclusivity, empowering those now excluded from decisions about how technologies are designed, who profits from them, and who are surveilled and exploited by them.
The Doomsday Calculation: How an Equation that Predicts the Future Is Transforming Everything We Know About Life and the Universe
Poundstone, William
(Hardcover)
An equation that foretells the future is transforming everything we know about life, business, and the universe.In the 18th century, the British minister and mathematician Thomas Bayes devised a theorem that allowed him to assign probabilities to events that had never happened before. It languished in obscurity for centuries until computers came along and made it easy to crunch the numbers. Now, as the foundation of big data, Bayes' formula has become a linchpin of the digital economy.But here's where things get really interesting: Bayes' theorem can also be used to lay odds on the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence; on whether we live in a Matrix-like counterfeit of reality; on the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum theory being correct; and on the biggest question of all: how long will humanity survive?The Doomsday Calculation tells how Silicon Valley's profitable formula became a controversial pivot of contemporary thought. Drawing on interviews with thought leaders around the globe, it's the story of a group of intellectual mavericks who are challenging what we thought we knew about our place in the universe. The Doomsday Calculation is compelling reading for anyone interested in our culture and its future.
Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State
Gellman, Barton
(Hardcover)
“Engrossing. . . . Gellman [is] a thorough, exacting reporter . . . a marvelous narrator for this particular story, as he nimbly guides us through complex technical arcana and some stubborn ethical questions. . . . Dark Mirror would be simply pleasurable to read if the story it told didn’t also happen to be frighteningly real.” —Jennifer Szalai, The New York TimesFrom the three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and author of the New York Times bestseller Angler, the definitive master narrative of Edward Snowden and the modern surveillance state, based on unique access to Snowden and groundbreaking reportage around the world.Edward Snowden touched off a global debate in 2013 when he gave Barton Gellman, Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald each a vast and explosive archive of highly classified files revealing the extent of the American government’s access to our every communication. They shared the Pulitzer Prize that year for public service. For Gellman, who never stopped reporting, that was only the beginning.  He jumped off from what Snowden gave him to track the reach and methodology of the U.S. surveillance state and bring it to light with astonishing new clarity.  Along the way, he interrogated Snowden’s own history and found important ways in which myth and reality do not line up.  Gellman treats Snowden with respect, but this is no hagiographic account, and Dark Mirror sets the record straight in ways that are both fascinating and important.   Dark Mirror is the story that Gellman could not tell before, a gripping inside narrative of investigative reporting as it happened and a deep dive into the machinery of the surveillance state. Gellman recounts the puzzles, dilemmas and tumultuous events behind the scenes of his work – in top secret intelligence facilities, in Moscow hotel rooms, in huddles with Post lawyers and editors, in Silicon Valley executive suites, and in encrypted messages from anonymous accounts. Within the book is a compelling portrait of national security journalism under pressure from legal threats, government investigations, and foreign intelligence agencies intent on stealing Gellman’s files. Throughout Dark Mirror, Gellman wages an escalating battle against unknown adversaries who force him to mimic their tradecraft in self-defense.  With the vivid and insightful style that is the author’s trademark, Dark Mirror is a true-life spy tale about the surveillance-industrial revolution and its discontents. Along the way, with the benefit of fresh reporting, it tells the full story of a government leak unrivaled in drama since All the President’s Men.
Influence: How Social Media Influencers are Shaping our Digital Future
McCorquodale, Sara
(Hardcover)
A detailed review of what businesses need to know about influencer strategies, social media and how digital communication works.Digital influencing is one of the most exciting and disruptive new industries, forecast to be worth billions by 2020, but those charged with making this an effective part of their digital strategy rarely understand how this emergent industry works. When it comes to online growth, digital influencers are now consistently outperforming traditional media and brand advertising, even if much of what they do remains a mystery to many people.Sara McCorquodale is the UK's leading authority on the influencer space, and this new book demystifies exactly how digital influence works, interrogates the phenomenon, analyzes its problems, and forecasts its future. A compelling and deeply insightful book, this will be a must-read for anyone whose business success is dependent on prospering online.In Influence, readers will gain a foundation of knowledge into how and why digital communication has become so dominated by influencers, as well as gaining invaluable, never-before-heard insights from the influencers themselves. They will understand how digital trends emerge, the building blocks that make bloggers, vloggers and instagrammers so compelling, and why the context in which influencer marketing emerged is so closely linked to its ongoing success.Thanks to Sara's independent analysis of influencer media and marketing, readers will finish the book with a clear understanding as to the problems now faced by businesses and brands around the world, and how such issues can be identified, tackled and overcome.
The History of the Future: Oculus, Facebook, and the Revolution That Swept Virtual Reality
Harris, Blake J.
(Hardcover)
The dramatic, larger-than-life true story behind the founding of Oculus, its quest for virtual reality, and its founder's contentious battle for political freedom against Facebook, from the bestselling author of Console Wars.In The History of the Future, Harris once again deep-dives into a tech drama for the ages to expertly tell the larger-than-life true story of Oculus, the virtual reality company founded in 2012 that - less than two years later - would catch the attention of Mark Zuckerberg and wind up being bought by Facebook for over $2 billion dollars.This incredible underdog story begins with inventor Palmer Luckey, then just a nineteen-year-old dreamer, living alone in a camper trailer in Long Beach, California. At the time, virtual reality - long-hailed as the ultimate technology - was so costly and experimental that it was unattainable outside of a few research labs and military training facilities. But with the founding of Oculus, and the belief that his tantalizing vision of the future could one day be more than science fiction, Luckey put everything he had into creating a device that would allow gamers like him to step into virtual worlds and, in doing so, hopefully kickstart a VR revolution. With the help of an industry legend, a serial entrepreneur, and a slew of colorful characters - including those behind gaming sensations like Doom, Words with Friends, and Guitar Hero - Luckey’s scrappy startup would finally deliver the dream of immersive and affordable virtual reality to consumers, leading geeks and gamers to be excited in a way that they hadn’t been in years, and tech firms and investors scrambling to get in on the action before it was too late.Over the course of three years (and with unprecedented access from Oculus and Facebook), Harris conducted hundreds of interviews with key players in the VR revolution - including Luckey, his partners, and their cult of dreamers - to weave together a rich, cinematic narrative that captures the breakthroughs, breakdowns, and human drama of trying to change the world. The result is a supremely accessible, entertaining look at the birth of a new multi-billion-dollar industry; one full of heroes, villains, and twists at every corner. Take, for instance, Harris’ own discovery while writing this story. When he started this endeavor, he had no idea that this tale would somehow involve Donald Trump, billion-dollar lawsuits, illegal practices, and end with Luckey - eventually ousted from Facebook - as one of the most polarizing figures in Silicon Valley.
Sidemen: The Book
Coronet Books
(Hardcover)
Billions of you have watched their videos and millions of you have followed them on social media. So here we go; it's time to back up because YouTube superstars, The Sidemen, are finally here in book form and they're dishing the dirt on each other as well as the YouTube universe.
Analogia: The Emergence of Technology Beyond Programmable Control
Dyson, George
(Hardcover)
In Analogia, technology historian George Dyson presents a startling look back at the analog age and life before the digital revolution - and an unsettling vision of what comes next.
Block City: How to Build Incredible Worlds in Minecraft
Kearney, Kirsten
(Softcover)
Master builders present thirty-six amazing Minecraft projects, ranging from the contemporary metropolis to past civilizations, and from fantasy kingdoms to futuristic zones. They offer advice about planning and design, as well as step-by-step tutorials for a range of structures at different levels of difficulty, including buildings, vehicles, streets, and more. Whether you're a seasoned mega builder or are considering putting together the smallest hut, prepare to be inspired!
The New Childhood: Raising Kids to Thrive in a Connected World
Shapiro, Jordan
(Hardcover)
A provocative look at the new, digital landscape of childhood and how to navigate it.In The New Childhood, Jordan Shapiro provides a hopeful counterpoint to the fearful hand-wringing that has come to define our narrative around children and technology. Drawing on groundbreaking research in economics, psychology, philosophy, and education, The New Childhood shows how technology is guiding humanity toward a bright future in which our children will be able to create new, better models of global citizenship, connection, and community.Shapiro offers concrete, practical advice on how to parent and educate children effectively in a connected world, and provides tools and techniques for using technology to engage with kids and help them learn and grow. He compares this moment in time to other great technological revolutions in humanity's past and presents entertaining micro-histories of cultural fixtures: the sandbox, finger painting, the family dinner, and more. But most importantly, The New Childhood paints a timely, inspiring and positive picture of today's children, recognizing that they are poised to create a progressive, diverse, meaningful, and hyper-connected world that today's adults can only barely imagine.
Now You're Talking: Human Conversation From the Neanderthals to Artificial Intelligence
Cox, Trevor
(Paperback)
Being able to speak is what makes us human. If you’ve ever felt the shock of listening to a recording of your own voice, you realise how important your voice is to your personal identity. We judge others – and whether we trust them – not just by their words but by the way they talk: their intonation, their pitch, their accent.Now You’re Talking explores the full range of our voice – how we speak and how we sing; how our vocal anatomy works; what happens when things go wrong; and how technology enables us to imitate and manipulate the human voice. Trevor Cox talks to vocal coaches who help people to develop their new voice after a gender change; to record producers whose use of technology has transformed the singing voice; and to computer scientists who replicate the human voice in their development of Artificial Intelligence.Beginning with the Neanderthals, Now You’re Talking takes us all the way to the digital age – with the frightening prospect that we may soon hear ‘unexpected item in the bagging area’ more frequently than a friendly ‘Hello, how are you?’ in the street.
The Social CEO: How Social Media Can Make You A Stronger Leader
Corbet, Damian
(Hardcover)
Insights into why CEOs need to get social for business success, and how they can become effective social leaders.While business leaders may feel that it's enough to hire social media managers and amend their marketing strategies, Damian Corbet shows why organizations need to do more to succeed in the Social Age--why CEOs need to "get social" to survive.The Social CEO sets out to educate and inspire senior leaders to embrace the Social Age, teaching them the hows and whys of utilizing social media in order to make them stronger leaders. Social CEOs can effectively encourage engagement from their employees as well as other stakeholders and customers; they're better able to communicate their organization's objectives and values, gauge the climate in which they operate and improve their brand image.Offering invaluable contributions from industry-recognized experts in social business, The Social CEO explores the many aspects of leading in the Social Age, such as storytelling, personal branding, managing risk and public relations. With chapters also written by practicing "social CEOs" working across a variety of sectors, from healthcare to sport, the book provides a wealth of insight into how social media can be used to gain a competitive advantage.
Uncanny Valley
Wiener, Anna
(Hardcover)
The prescient, page-turning account of a journey in Silicon Valley: a defining memoir of our digital ageIn her mid-twenties, at the height of tech industry idealism, Anna Wiener - stuck, broke, and looking for meaning in her work, like any good millennial - left a job in book publishing for the promise of the new digital economy. She moved from New York to San Francisco, where she landed at a big-data startup in the heart of the Silicon Valley bubble: a world of surreal extravagance, dubious success, and fresh-faced entrepreneurs hell-bent on domination, glory, and, of course, progress.Anna arrived amidst a massive cultural shift, as the tech industry rapidly transformed into a locus of wealth and power rivaling Wall Street. But amid the company ski vacations and in-office speakeasies, boyish camaraderie and ride-or-die corporate fealty, a new Silicon Valley began to emerge: one in far over its head, one that enriched itself at the expense of the idyllic future it claimed to be building.Part coming-of-age-story, part portrait of an already-bygone era, Anna Wiener’s memoir is a rare first-person glimpse into high-flying, reckless startup culture at a time of unchecked ambition, unregulated surveillance, wild fortune, and accelerating political power. With wit, candor, and heart, Anna deftly charts the tech industry’s shift from self-appointed world savior to democracy-endangering liability, alongside a personal narrative of aspiration, ambivalence, and disillusionment.Unsparing and incisive, Uncanny Valley is a cautionary tale, and a revelatory interrogation of a world reckoning with consequences its unwitting designers are only beginning to understand.
You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It's Making the World a Weirder Place
Shane, Janelle
(Hardcover)
"You look like a thing and I love you" is one of the best pickup lines ever... according to an artificial intelligence trained by scientist Janelle Shane, creator of the popular blog AI Weirdness. She creates silly AIs that learn how to name paint colors, create the best recipes, and even flirt (badly) with humans--all to understand the technology that governs so much of our daily lives.We rely on AI every day for recommendations, for translations, and to put cat ears on our selfie videos. We also trust AI with matters of life and death, on the road and in our hospitals. But how smart is AI really... and how does it solve problems, understand humans, and even drive self-driving cars?Shane delivers the answers to every AI question you've ever asked, and some you definitely haven't. Like, how can a computer design the perfect sandwich? What does robot-generated Harry Potter fan-fiction look like? And is the world's best Halloween costume really "Vampire Hog Bride"?In this smart, often hilarious introduction to the most interesting science of our time, Shane shows how these programs learn, fail, and adapt--and how they reflect the best and worst of humanity.You Look Like a Thing and I Love You is the perfect book for anyone curious about what the robots in our lives are thinking.
Make Noise: A Creator's Guide to Podcasting and Great Audio Storytelling
Nuzum, Eric
(Paperback)
Make Noise brings all the wisdom, advice, practical information, and big-picture thinking that any individual or business needs to make a successful podcast. Eric Nuzum identifies core principles - create empathetically, i.e., think like the audience listens, and stay focused on what’s unique to you and what you have to say. He helps readers come up with a “Ten Word Description” that will guide them throughout the creative process, and then gets into how-tos - how to develop character, story, voice; how to conduct an effective interview; how to be mindful of the limitations of audio (be more like Hemingway than Faulkner). Here are the rules of storytelling, advice on how to test-drive an idea (make six individual lunch dates, talk it over with each, and by the end see how you’ve refined your thinking), and, when it’s all ready, how to develop your audience.Make Noise won’t tell you what microphone to buy. But its insights and guidance will help readers better express themselves as an audio storyteller.
The Art of Invisibility: The World's Most Famous Hacker Teaches You How to Be Safe in the Age of Big Brother and Big Data
Mitnick, Kevin
(Paperback)
Be online without leaving a trace. Your every step online is being tracked and stored, and your identity literally stolen. Big companies and big governments want to know and exploit what you do, and privacy is a luxury few can afford or understand.In this explosive yet practical book, Kevin Mitnick uses true-life stories to show exactly what is happening without your knowledge, teaching you "the art of invisibility" -- online and real-world tactics to protect you and your family, using easy step-by-step instructions.Reading this book, you will learn everything from password protection and smart Wi-Fi usage to advanced techniques designed to maximize your anonymity. Kevin Mitnick knows exactly how vulnerabilities can be exploited and just what to do to prevent that from happening.The world's most famous -- and formerly the US government's most wanted -- computer hacker, he has hacked into some of the country's most powerful and seemingly impenetrable agencies and companies, and at one point was on a three-year run from the FBI. Now Mitnick is reformed and widely regarded as the expert on the subject of computer security. Invisibility isn't just for superheroes; privacy is a power you deserve and need in the age of Big Brother and Big Data.
The Fall of the Human Empire
Bouee, Charles-Edouard
(Hardcover)
The little-known history of artificial intelligence--told by a robot named Lucie.Two trends are coming together: exponential growth in the processing power of supercomputers, and new software which can copy the way neurons in the human brain work and give machines the ability to learn. Smart systems will soon be commonplace in homes, businesses, factories, administrations, hospitals and the armed forces. How autonomous will they be? How free to make decisions? What place will human beings still have in a world controlled by robots? After the atom bomb, is artificial intelligence the second lethal weapon capable of destroying mankind, its inventor?The Fall of the Human Empire traces the little-known history of artificial intelligence from the standpoint of a robot called Lucie. She--or it?--recounts her adventures and reveals the mysteries of her long journey with humans, and provides a thought-provoking storyline of what developments in A.I. may mean for both humans and robots.
A History of Video Games in 64 Objects
Harper Collins Publisher
(Hardcover)
Inspired by the groundbreaking A History of the World in 100 Objects, this book draws on the unique collections of The Strong museum in Rochester, New York, to chronicle the evolution of video games, from Pong to first-person shooters, told through the stories of dozens of objects essential to the field’s creation and development.Drawing on the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s unmatched collection of video game artifacts, this fascinating history offers an expansive look at the development of one of the most popular and influential activities of the modern world: video gaming.Sixty-four unique objects tell the story of the video game from inception to today. Pithy, in-depth essays and photographs examine each object’s significance to video game play - what it has contributed to the history of gaming - as well as the greater culture.
The Innovators
Isaacson, Walter
(Hardcover)
Following his blockbuster biography of Steve Jobs, The Innovators is Walter Isaacson's revealing story of the people who created the computer and the Internet. It is destined to be the standard history of the digital revolution and an indispensable guide to how innovation really happens. What were the talents that allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their visionary ideas into disruptive realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some succeed and others fail? In his masterly saga, Isaacson begins with Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter, who pioneered computer programming in the 1840s. He explores the fascinating personalities that created our current digital revolution, such as Vannevar Bush, Alan Turing, John von Neumann, J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Robert Noyce, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee, and Larry Page. This is the story of how their minds worked and what made them so inventive. It's also a narrative of how their ability to collaborate and master the art of teamwork made them even more creative. For an era that seeks to foster innovation, creativity, and teamwork, The Innovators shows how they happen.
Lurking: How a Person Became a User
McNeil, Joanne
(Hardcover)
A concise but wide-ranging personal history of the internet from - for the first time - the point of view of the userIn a shockingly short amount of time, the internet has bound people around the world together and torn us apart and changed not just the way we communicate but who we are and who we can be. It has created a new, unprecedented cultural space that we are all a part of - even if we don’t participate, that is how we participate - but by which we’re continually surprised, betrayed, enriched, befuddled. We have churned through platforms and technologies and in turn been churned by them. And yet, the internet is us and always has been.In Lurking, Joanne McNeil digs deep and identifies the primary (if sometimes contradictory) concerns of people online: searching, safety, privacy, identity, community, anonymity, and visibility. She charts what it is that brought people online and what keeps us here even as the social equations of digital life - what we’re made to trade, knowingly or otherwise, for the benefits of the internet - have shifted radically beneath us. It is a story we are accustomed to hearing as tales of entrepreneurs and visionaries and dynamic and powerful corporations, but there is a more profound, intimate story that hasn’t yet been told.Long one of the most incisive, ferociously intelligent, and widely respected cultural critics online, McNeil here establishes a singular vision of who we are now, tells the stories of how we became us, and helps us start to figure out what we do now.
Social Media Success for Every Brand: The Five StoryBrand Pillars That Turn Posts Into Profits
Diaz-Ortiz, Claire
(Paperback)
Most business owners are blindly guessing at their social media strategy, and it’s costing them time and money. Based on Donald Miller’s bestselling book Building a StoryBrand, Claire Diaz-Ortiz applies the seven principles of the StoryBrand Framework to help you build an effective, long-lasting social media plan for your brand. Social Media Success for Every Brand teaches readers how to incorporate the StoryBrand 7-Part Framework into their social media channels to increase engagement and see better results. Readers will understand exactly what they need to do with their social media to drive growth to their organization through the practical guidance of the five-point SHARE model:• STORY• HOW• AUDIENCE• REACH• EXCELLENCESocial Media Success for Every Brand does not require the reader to be familiar with Building a StoryBrand but provides enough foundation to prepare the reader for practical success with their social media content. Together with the StoryBrand Framework, Claire’s SHARE model will help boost customer engagement and grow the organization’s brand awareness and revenues.
Breaking News: The Remaking of Journalism and Why it Matters Now
Rusbridger, Alan
(Paperback)
An urgent account of the revolution that has upended the news business, written by one of the most accomplished journalists of our timeTechnology has radically altered the news landscape. Once-powerful newspapers have lost their clout or been purchased by owners with particular agendas. Algorithms select which stories we see. The Internet allows consequential revelations, closely guarded secrets, and dangerous misinformation to spread at the speed of a click.In Breaking News, Alan Rusbridger demonstrates how these decisive shifts have occurred, and what they mean for the future of democracy. In the twenty years he spent editing The Guardian, Rusbridger managed the transformation of the progressive British daily into the most visited serious English-language newspaper site in the world. He oversaw an extraordinary run of world-shaking scoops, including the exposure of phone hacking by London tabloids, the Wikileaks release of U.S.diplomatic cables, and later the revelation of Edward Snowden’s National Security Agency files. At the same time, Rusbridger helped The Guardian become a pioneer in Internet journalism, stressing free access and robust interactions with readers. Here, Rusbridger vividly observes the media’s transformation from close range while also offering a vital assessment of the risks and rewards of practicing journalism in a high-impact, high-stress time.
On Intelligence
Hawkins, Jeff
(Softcover)
Jeff Hawkins, the man who created the PalmPilot, Treo smart phone, and other handheld devices, has reshaped our relationship to computers. Now he stands ready to revolutionize both neuroscience and computing in one stroke, with a new understanding of intelligence itself. Hawkins develops a powerful theory of how the human brain works, explaining why computers are not intelligent and how, based on this new theory, we can finally build intelligent machines. The brain is not a computer, but a memory system that stores experiences in a way that reflects the true structure of the world, remembering sequences of events and their nested relationships and making predictions based on those memories. It is this memory-prediction system that forms the basis of intelligence, perception, creativity, and even consciousness. In an engaging style that will captivate audiences from the merely curious to the professional scientist, Hawkins shows how a clear understanding of how the brain works will make it possible for us to build intelligent machines, in silicon, that will exceed our human ability in surprising ways. Written with acclaimed science writer Sandra Blakeslee, On Intelligence promises to completely transfigure the possibilities of the technology age. It is a landmark book in its scope and clarity.
Official Fortnite Outfits Collectors' Edition
Little Brown and Company
(Hardcover)
This collectors' edition features Fortnite's Outfits and accessories from Seasons 1 to 7 arranged in sets, with tips on how to make your look unique! From the fun and fabulous to the fearsome and formidable, there's a skin to suit everyone. So whether you choose to be Wild Card or Whiplash, Beef Boss or Burnout, take one last look in the mirror and let's go.
The Red Web: The Struggle Between Russia's Digital Dictators and the New Online Revolutionaries
Borogan, Irina
(Hardcover)
The Internet in Russia is either the most efficient totalitarian tool or the device by which totalitarianism will be overthrown. Perhaps both.On the eighth floor of an ordinary-looking building in an otherwise residential district of southwest Moscow, in a room occupied by the Federal Security Service (FSB), is a box the size of a VHS player marked SORM. The Russian government's front line in the battle for the future of the Internet, SORM is the world's most intrusive listening device, monitoring e-mails, Internet usage, Skype, and all social networks.But for every hacker subcontracted by the FSB to interfere with Russia's antagonists abroad—such as those who, in a massive denial-of-service attack, overwhelmed the entire Internet in neighboring Estonia—there is a radical or an opportunist who is using the web to chip away at the power of the state at home.Drawing from scores of interviews personally conducted with numerous prominent officials in the Ministry of Communications and web-savvy activists challenging the state, Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan peel back the history of advanced surveillance systems in Russia. From research laboratories in Soviet-era labor camps, to the legalization of government monitoring of all telephone and Internet communications in the 1990s, to the present day, their incisive and alarming investigation into the Kremlin's massive online-surveillance state exposes just how easily a free global exchange can be coerced into becoming a tool of repression and geopolitical warfare. Dissidents, oligarchs, and some of the world's most dangerous hackers collide in the uniquely Russian virtual world of The Red Web.
Targeted: The Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower's Inside Story of How Big Data, Trump, and Facebook Broke Democracy and How It Can Happen Again
Kaiser, Brittany
(Hardcover)
In this explosive memoir, a political consultant and technology whistleblower reveals the disturbing truth about the multi-billion-dollar data industry, revealing to the public how companies are getting richer using our personal information and exposing how Cambridge Analytica exploited weaknesses in privacy laws to help elect Donald Trump.When Brittany Kaiser joined Cambridge Analytica – the UK-based political consulting firm funded by conservative billionaire and Donald Trump patron Robert Mercer – she was an idealistic young professional working on her fourth degree in human rights law and international relations. A veteran of Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, Kaiser’s goal was to utilize data for humanitarian purposes, most notably to prevent genocide and human rights abuses. But her experience inside Cambridge Analytica opened her eyes to the tremendous risks that this unregulated industry poses to privacy and democracy.Targeted is Kaiser’s eyewitness chronicle of the dramatic and disturbing story of the rise and fall of Cambridge Analytica. She reveals to the public how Facebook’s lax policies and lack of sufficient national laws allowed voters to be manipulated in both Britain and the United States, where personal data was weaponised to spread fake news and racist messaging during the Brexit vote and the 2016 election. But the damage isn’t done Kaiser warns; the 2020 election can be compromised as well if we continue to do nothing.In the aftermath of the U.S. election, as she became aware of the horrifying reality of what Cambridge Analytica had done in support of Donald Trump, Kaiser made the difficult choice to expose the truth. Risking her career, relationships, and personal safety, she told authorities about the data industry’s unethical business practices, eventually testifying before Parliament.Packed with never-before-publicly-told stories, Targeted goes inside the secretive meetings with Trump campaign personnel and details the promises Cambridge Analytica made to win. Throughout, Kaiser makes the case for regulation, arguing that legal oversight of the data industry is not only justifiable but essential to ensuring the long-term safety of our democracy.
Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun Is Changing Reality
Castronova, Edward
(Paperback)
Virtual worlds have exploded out of online game culture and now capture the attention of millions of ordinary people: husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, workers, retirees. Devoting dozens of hours each week to massively multiplayer virtual reality environments (like World of Warcraft and Second Life), these millions are the start of an exodus into the refuge of fantasy, where they experience life under a new social, political, and economic order built around fun. Given the choice between a fantasy world and the real world, how many of us would choose reality? Exodus to the Virtual World explains the growing migration into virtual reality, and how it will change the way we live--both in fantasy worlds and in the real one.
Ghost in the Wires
Mitnick, Kevin
(Paperback)
Kevin Mitnick was the most elusive computer break-in artist in history. He accessed computers and networks at the world's biggest companies - and however fast the authorities were, Mitnick was faster, sprinting through phone switches, computer systems, and cellular networks. He spent years skipping through cyberspace, always three steps ahead and labeled unstoppable. But for Kevin, hacking wasn't just about technological feats - it was an old fashioned confidence game that required guile and deception to trick the unwitting out of valuable information. Driven by a powerful urge to accomplish the impossible, Mitnick bypassed security systems and blazed into major organizations including Motorola, Sun Microsystems, and Pacific Bell. But as the FBI's net began to tighten, Kevin went on the run, engaging in an increasingly sophisticated cat and mouse game that led through false identities, a host of cities, plenty of close shaves, and an ultimate showdown with the Feds, who would stop at nothing to bring him down. Ghost in the Wires is a thrilling true story of intrigue, suspense, and unbelievable escape, and a portrait of a visionary whose creativity, skills, and persistence forced the authorities to rethink the way they pursued him, inspiring ripples that brought permanent changes in the way people and companies protect their most sensitive information.
No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State
Greenwald, Glenn
(Paperback)
In May 2013, Glenn Greenwald set out for Hong Kong to meet an anonymous source who claimed to have astonishing evidence of pervasive government spying and insisted on communicating only through heavily encrypted channels. That source turned out to be the twenty-nine-year-old NSA contractor Edward Snowden, and his revelations about the agency's widespread, systemic overreach proved to be some of the most explosive and consequential news in recent history, triggering a fierce debate over national security and information privacy.Now Greenwald fits all the pieces together, recounting his high-intensity eleven-day trip to Hong Kong, examining the broader implications of the surveillance detailed in his reporting for The Guardian, and revealing fresh information on the NSA's unprecedented abuse of power with documents from the Snowden archive. Fearless and incisive, No Place to Hide has already sparked outrage around the globe and been hailed by voices across the political spectrum as an essential contribution to our understanding of the U.S. surveillance state.
What Would Google Do?
Jarvis, Jeff
(Hardcover)
In a book that's one part prophecy, one part thought experiment, one part manifesto, and one part survival manual, internet impresario and blogging pioneer Jeff Jarvis reverse-engineers Google - the fastest-growing company in history - to discover forty clear and straightforward rules to manage and live by. At the same time, he illuminates the new worldview of the internet generation: how it challenges and destroys, but also opens up vast new opportunities. His findings are counterintuitive, imaginative, practical, and above all visionary, giving readers a glimpse of how everyone and everything - from corporations to governments, nations to individuals -must evolve in the Google era. Along the way, he looks under the hood of a car designed by its drivers, ponders a worldwide university where the students design their curriculum, envisions an airline fueled by a social network, imagines the open-source restaurant, and examines a series of industries and institutions that will soon benefit from this book's central question. The result is an astonishing, mind-opening book that, in the end, is not about Google. It's about you.
A Beginner's Guide to Online Genealogy: Learn How to Trace Your Family History and Discover Your Roots
Dunn, Michael
(Paperback)
Use online tools to discover your family's history!Today, with millions of records available online, it's never been easier to chart your family history and discover your roots. But with hundreds of ancestors just a click away, where do you start? This book guides you through the genealogy process with easy-to-understand strategies for researching family roots online. Featuring detailed explanations, each chapter teaches you how to navigate popular genealogy websites, decipher census data and other online records, and connect with other family members to share your findings.Complete with tips on using free databases and genealogy apps, A Beginner's Guide to Online Genealogy has everything you need to find long-lost relatives and map your family tree!
Computadoras Para Todos: Todo Lo Que Tiene Que Saber Acerca De Como Usar Su Cumputadora Y Smartphone
Restrepo, Jaime
(Paperback)
¡Conozca a fondo su computadora y todo lo que puede hacer con ella!¿Necesita saber usar las computadoras para mejorar su empleo y nivel de vida, pero no sabe por dónde empezar?¿No entiende la terminología inglesa que se usa en la computación?¿Quiere descubrir y aprovechar todo lo que el Internet tiene que ofrecer?¿Quiere mantenerse en contacto con sus amigos y familiares por correo electrónico, llamadas telefónicas por Internet o a través de las redes sociales virtuales?Computadoras para todos es la entrada al mundo de la informática, educación, negocios, diversión y relaciones sociales para la familia hispana. Jaime Restrepo le brinda al lector —tanto al principiante como al más conocedor— una guía más práctica y eficaz para quien quiera saber cómo usar una computadora y cómo sacarle todo el provecho. En esta edición ampliada y actualizada, Computadoras para todos le enseña lo último en:Programas y dispositivos• Microsoft Windows 10• Microsoft Word, Excel y Powerpoint • Microsoft Internet Explorer• Microsoft Outlook y Windows Live Mail• iTunes para iPod, iPhone y iPad • Streaming de videos y músicaInternet• Gmail• Skype• YouTube• Google Maps• Facebook• Twitter• Amazon.com Dirigido al público hispanohablante, Computadoras para todos contiene más de 400 ilustraciones detalladas, incluyendo pantallas en inglés y el vocabulario en inglés que domina la computación, explicado y presentado todo de una manera comprensible para cualquiera que no se sienta cómodo con ese idioma.
The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intellligence
Kurzweil, Ray
(Paperback)
The Age of Spiritual Machines is no mere list of predictions but a prophetic blueprint for the future. Kurzweil guides us through the inexorable advances that will result in computers exceeding the memory capacity and computational ability of the human brain. According to Kurzweil, machines will achieve all this by 2020, with human attributes not far behind. We will begin to have relationships with automated personalities and use them as teachers, companions, and lovers. A mere ten years later, information will be fed straight into our brains along direct neural pathways; computers, for their part, will have read all the world's literature. The distinction between us and computers will have become sufficiently blurred that when the machines claim to be conscious, we will believe them.
American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers
Sales, Nancy Jo
(Paperback)
Award-winning Vanity Fair writer Nancy Jo Sales crisscrossed the country talking to more than two hundred girls between the ages of thirteen and nineteen about their experiences online and off. They are coming of age online in a hypersexualized culture that has normalized extreme behavior, from pornography to the casual exchange of nude photographs; a culture rife with a virulent new strain of sexism; a culture in which teenagers are spending so much time on technology and social media that they are not developing basic communication skills. The dominant force in the lives of girls coming of age in America today is social media: Instagram, Whisper, Vine, Youtube, Kik, Ask.fm, Tinder. Provocative, explosive, and urgent, American Girls will ignite much-needed conversation about how we can help our daughters and sons negotiate the new social and sexual norms that govern their lives.
The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems . . . and Create More
Dormehl, Luke
(Paperback)
A fascinating guided tour of the complex, fast-moving, and influential world of algorithms-what they are, why they're such powerful predictors of human behavior, and where they're headed next. Algorithms exert an extraordinary level of influence on our everyday lives - from dating websites and financial trading floors, through to online retailing and internet searches - Google's search algorithm is now a more closely guarded commercial secret than the recipe for Coca-Cola. Algorithms follow a series of instructions to solve a problem and will include a strategy to produce the best outcome possible from the options and permutations available. Used by scientists for many years and applied in a very specialized way they are now increasingly employed to process the vast amounts of data being generated, in investment banks, in the movie industry where they are used to predict success or failure at the box office and by social scientists and policy makers. What if everything in life could be reduced to a simple formula? What if numbers were able to tell us which partners we were best matched with - not just in terms of attractiveness, but for a long-term committed marriage? Or if they could say which films would be the biggest hits at the box office, and what changes could be made to those films to make them even more successful? Or even who is likely to commit certain crimes, and when? This may sound like the world of science fiction, but in fact it is just the tip of the iceberg in a world that is increasingly ruled by complex algorithms and neural networks. In The Formula, Luke Dormehl takes readers inside the world of numbers, asking how we came to believe in the all-conquering power of algorithms; introducing the mathematicians, artificial intelligence experts and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who are shaping this brave new world, and ultimately asking how we survive in an era where numbers can sometimes seem to create as many problems as they solve.
Outnumbered: From Facebook and Google to Fake News and Filter-Bubbles - The Algorithms That Control Our Lives
Sumpter, David
(Hardcover)
Outnumbered is a journey to the dark side of mathematics, from how it dictates our social media activities to our travel routes. Algorithms are running our society, and as Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal has revealed, we don't even realize how our data has been used against us. David Sumpter investigates whether mathematics is crossing dangerous lines when it comes to what we can make decisions about.
What to Think About Machines That Think:Today's Leading Thinkers on the Age of Machine Intelligence
Brockman, John (Edt)
(Paperback)
Stephen Hawking recently made headlines by noting, “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.” Others, conversely, have trumpeted a new age of “superintelligence” in which smart devices will exponentially extend human capacities. No longer just a matter of science-fiction fantasy (2001, Blade Runner, The Terminator, Her, etc.), it is time to seriously consider the reality of intelligent technology, many forms of which are already being integrated into our daily lives. In that spirit, John Brockman, publisher of Edge. org (“the world’s smartest website” – The Guardian), asked the world’s most influential scientists, philosophers, and artists one of today’s most consequential questions: What do you think about machines that think?
Bitcoin Billionaires: A True Story of Genius, Betrayal, and Redemption
Mezrich, Ben
(Paperback)
From Ben Mezrich, the New York Times bestselling author of The Accidental Billionaires and Bringing Down the House, comes Bitcoin Billionaires--the fascinating story of brothers Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss's big bet on crypto-currency and its dazzling pay-off.Ben Mezrich's 2009 bestseller The Accidental Billionaires is the definitive account of Facebook's founding and the basis for the Academy Award–winning film The Social Network. Two of the story's iconic characters are Harvard students Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss: identical twins, Olympic rowers, and foils to Mark Zuckerberg. Bitcoin Billionaires is the story of the brothers’ redemption and revenge in the wake of their epic legal battle with Facebook.Planning to start careers as venture capitalists, the brothers quickly discover that no one will take their money after their fight with Zuckerberg. While nursing their wounds in Ibiza, they accidentally run into an eccentric character who tells them about a brand-new idea: cryptocurrency. Immersing themselves in what is then an obscure and sometimes sinister world, they begin to realize “crypto” is, in their own words, "either the next big thing or total bulls--t." There’s nothing left to do but make a bet.From the Silk Road to the halls of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Bitcoin Billionaires will take us on a wild and surprising ride while illuminating a tantalizing economic future. On November 26, 2017, the Winklevoss brothers became the first bitcoin billionaires. Here’s the story of how they got there—as only Ben Mezrich could tell it.
Creative Projects with Raspberry Pi
Freeman, Will
(Paperback)
An illustrated guide to everything you need to know about Raspberry Pi.The Raspberry Pi is the most versatile, affordable, and accessible computer ever made - and you don't need any coding skills to use it. Creative Projects with Raspberry Pi shows dozens of the most remarkable and ingenious ways to use your Raspberry Pi and will appeal to Pi fans of all ages.• Features 35 inspiring inventions, including instructions for 10 buildable projects• Accompanied by a dedicated website containing all the code you need• Expert tips and secrets from Raspberry Pi pros around the world
The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture
Dear, Brian
(Hardcover)
At a time when Steve Jobs was only a teenager and Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t even born, a group of visionary engineers and designers—some of them only high school students—in the late 1960s and 1970s created a computer system called PLATO, which was light-years ahead in experimenting with how people would learn, engage, communicate, and play through connected computers. Not only did PLATO engineers make significant hardware breakthroughs with plasma displays and touch screens but PLATO programmers also came up with a long list of software innovations: chat rooms, instant messaging, message boards, screen savers, multiplayer games, online newspapers, interactive fiction, and emoticons. Together, the PLATO community pioneered what we now collectively engage in as cyberculture. They were among the first to identify and also realize the potential and scope of the social interconnectivity of computers, well before the creation of the internet. PLATO was the foundational model for every online community that was to follow in its footsteps. The Friendly Orange Glow is the first history to recount in fascinating detail the remarkable accomplishments and inspiring personal stories of the PLATO community. The addictive nature of PLATO both ruined many a college career and launched pathbreaking multimillion-dollar software products. Its development, impact, and eventual disappearance provides an instructive case study of technological innovation and disruption, project management, and missed opportunities. Above all, The Friendly Orange Glow at last reveals new perspectives on the origins of social computing and our internet-infatuated world.
The New Digital Age: Transforming Nations, Businesses, and Our Lives
Cohen, Jared
(Paperback)
Outlines a transformational vision of a connected world, drawing on expertise to address questions regarding power balances, the relationship between privacy and security, and the role of technology in combating or enabling terrorism.
The Official eBay Bible (3rd Edition)
Griffith, Jim
(Softcover)
In this definitive resource, ultimate eBay insider Jim Griffith tells you everything you need to know to become a successful buyer and seller and to navigate the changes and improvements recently introduced to the eBay Web site. In this indispensable manual, authorized by eBay and featuring the very latest formats, screen shots, protocols, and etiquette, the eBay Guru provides a comprehensive blueprint for: Navigating the Web site, including advice for novice Internet users. How to make the most of eBay's new features. Placing a bid, step-by-step. Putting items up for sale, step-by-step. Tricks of the trade from successful eBay buyers and sellers. Tips and shortcuts for even the most technologically challenged. Success stories and testimonials from people whose lives have been changed by eBay.
The Players Ball: A Genius, a Con Man, and the Secret History of the Internet's Rise
Kushner, David
(Paperback)
In 1994, visionary entrepreneur Gary Kremen used a $2,500 loan to create the first online dating service, Match.com. Only five percent of Americans were using the internet at the time, and even fewer were looking online for love. He quickly bought the Sex.com domain too, betting the combination of love and sex would help propel the internet into the mainstream.Imagine Kremen’s surprise when he learned that someone named Stephen Michael Cohen had stolen the rights to Sex.com and was already making millions that Kremen would never see. Thus follows the wild true story of Kremen’s and Cohen’s decade-long battle for control. In The Players Ball, author and journalist David Kushner provides a front seat to these must-read Wild West years online, when innovators and outlaws battled for power and money.This cat-and-mouse game between a genius and a con man changed the way people connect forever, and is key to understanding the rise and future of the online world.
Raising a Screen-Smart Kid: Embrace the Good and Avoid the Bad in the Digital Age
Miner, Julianna
(Paperback)
For parents who didn't grow up with smartphones but can't let go of them now, expert advice on raising kids in our constantly connected worldMost kids get their first smartphone at the same time that they're experiencing major developmental changes. Making mistakes has always been a part of growing up, but how do parents help their kids navigate childhood and adolescence at a time when social media has the potential to magnify the consequences of those mistakes? Rather than spend all their time worrying about the worst-case scenario, readers get a bigger-picture understanding of their kids' digital landscape. Drawing on research and interviews with educators, psychologists, and kids themselves, Raising a Screen-Smart Kid offers practical advice on how parents can help their kids avoid the pitfalls and reap the benefits of the digital age by: • using social media to enhance connection with friends and family, instead of following strangers and celebrities, which is a predictor of loneliness and depression • finding online support and community for conditions such as depression and eating disorders, while avoiding potential triggers such as #Thinspiration Pinterest boards • learning and developing life skills through technology--for example, by problem-solving in online games--while avoiding inappropriate contentWritten by a public health expert and the creator of the popular blog Rants from Mommyland, this book shows parents how to help their kids navigate friendships, bullying, dating, self-esteem, and more online.
Raising Humans in a Digital World: Helping Kids Build a Healthy Relationship with Technology
Graber, Diana
(Paperback)
Sexting, cyberbullying, revenge porn, online predators . . . all of these potential threats can tempt parents to snatch the smartphone or tablet right out of their children’s hands. While avoidance might eliminate the dangers, that approach also means your child misses out on technology’s many benefits and opportunities.Raising Humans in a Digital World shows how digital kids must learn to navigate this environment, through• developing social-emotional skills• balancing virtual and real life• building safe and healthy relationships• avoiding cyberbullies and online predators• protecting personal information• identifying and avoiding fake news and questionable content• becoming positive role models and leaders.This book is packed with at-home discussion topics and enjoyable activities that any busy family can slip into their daily routine. Full of practical tips grounded in academic research and hands-on experience, today’s parents finally have what they’ve been waiting for—a guide to raising digital kids who will become the positive and successful leaders our world desperately needs.
This is Esports (and How to Spell it)
Chaloner, Paul
(Paperback)
Pro gaming's award-winning broadcaster Paul "Redeye" Chaloner brings us the definitive book on esports, the fastest growing entertainment phenomenon in the world today.
Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet
Blum, Andrew
(Paperback)
Tubes looks behind the scenes of our digital lives at the physical heart of the Internet itself. This is a book about real places on the map: their sounds and smells, their storied pasts, their physical details, and the people who live there. Sharing tales of his on-the-ground reporting, along with lucid explanations about how the Internet works, Blum's eye-opening travelogue offers a unique perspective on the role of technology in our lives.
Weaving the Web
Berners-Lee, Tim
(Softcover)
Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, has been hailed by Time magazine as one of the 100 greatest minds of this century. His creation has already changed the way people do business, entertain themselves, exchange ideas, and socialize with one another. Berners-Lee offers insights to help readers understand the true nature of the Web, enabling them to use it to their fullest advantage. He shares his views on such critical issues as censorship, privacy, the increasing power of software companies in the online world, and the need to find the ideal balance between the commercial and social forces on the Web. His criticism of the Web's current state makes clear that there is still much work to be done. Finally, Berners-Lee presents his own plan for the Web's future, one that calls for the active support and participation of programmers, computer manufacturers, and social organizations to make it happen.
Breaking News: The Remaking of Journalism and Why It Matters Now
Rusbridger, Alan
(Hardcover)
An urgent account of the revolution that has upended the news business, written by one of the most accomplished journalists of our time.Technology has radically altered the news landscape. Once-powerful newspapers have lost their clout or been purchased by owners with particular agendas. Algorithms select which stories we see. The Internet allows consequential revelations, closely guarded secrets, and dangerous misinformation to spread at the speed of a click.In Breaking News, Alan Rusbridger demonstrates how these decisive shifts have occurred, and what they mean for the future of democracy. In the twenty years he spent editing The Guardian, Rusbridger managed the transformation of the progressive British daily into the most visited serious English-language newspaper site in the world. He oversaw an extraordinary run of world-shaking scoops, including the exposure of phone hacking by London tabloids, the Wikileaks release of U.S.diplomatic cables, and later the revelation of Edward Snowden’s National Security Agency files. At the same time, Rusbridger helped The Guardian become a pioneer in Internet journalism, stressing free access and robust interactions with readers. Here, Rusbridger vividly observes the media’s transformation from close range while also offering a vital assessment of the risks and rewards of practicing journalism in a high-impact, high-stress time.
The Distraction Addiction
Pang, Alex Soojung-Kim
(Hardcover)
The question of our time: can we reclaim our lives in an age that feels busier and more distracting by the day? We've all found ourselves checking email at the dinner table, holding our breath while waiting for Outlook to load, or sitting hunched in front of a screen for an hour longer than we intended. Mobile devices and the web have invaded our lives, and this is a big idea book that addresses one of the biggest questions of our age: can we stay connected without diminishing our intelligence, attention spans, and ability to really live? Can we have it all? Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, a renowned Stanford technology guru, says yes. THE DISTRACTION ADDICTION is packed with fascinating studies, compelling research, and crucial takeaways. Whether it's breathing while Facebook refreshes, or finding creative ways to take a few hours away from the digital crush, this book is about the ways to tune in without tuning out.
The Golden Rules Of Blogging
Houghton, Robin
(Paperback)
Designed for bloggers of all experience levels, The Golden Rules of Blogging takes a hard look at the blogosphere's golden rules and shows you when, why and how to break them. Illustrated with real-live blogger stories and examples, along with expert advice from those who've learned the hard way, this book offers a fresh perspective on blogging.
Gray Day: My Undercover Mission to Expose America's First Cyber Spy
O'Neill, Eric
(Hardcover)
A cybersecurity expert and former FBI "ghost" tells the thrilling story of how he helped take down notorious FBI mole Robert Hanssen, the first Russian cyber spy.Eric O'Neill was only twenty-six when he was tapped for the case of a lifetime: a one-on-one undercover investigation of the FBI's top target, a man suspected of spying for the Russians for nearly two decades, giving up nuclear secrets, compromising intelligence, and betraying US assets. With zero training in face-to-face investigation, Eric found himself in a windowless, high-security office in the newly formed Information Assurance Section, tasked officially with helping the FBI secure its outdated computer system against hackers and spies--and unofficially with collecting evidence against his new boss, Robert Hanssen, an exacting and rage-prone veteran agent with a disturbing fondness for handguns. In the months that follow, Eric's self-esteem and young marriage unravel under the pressure of life in Room 9930, and he questions the very purpose of his mission. But as Hanssen outmaneuvers an intelligence community struggling to keep up with the new reality of cybersecurity, he also teaches Eric the game of spycraft. Eric will just have to learn to outplay his teacher if he wants to win.A tension-packed stew of power, paranoia, and psychological manipulation, Gray Day is also a cautionary tale of how the United States allowed Russia to become dominant in cyberespionage--and how we might begin to catch up.
The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything
Casey, Michael J.
(Hardcover)
Big banks have grown bigger and more entrenched. Privacy exists only until the next hack. Credit card fraud is a fact of life. Many of the "legacy systems" once designed to make our lives easier and our economy more efficient are no longer up to the task. Yet there is a way past all this - a new kind of operating system with the potential to revolutionize vast swaths of our economy: the blockchain.In The Truth Machine, Michael J. Casey and Paul Vigna demystify the blockchain and explain why it can restore personal control over our data, assets, and identities; grant billions of excluded people access to the global economy; and shift the balance of power to revive society’s faith in itself. They reveal the disruption it promises for industries including finance, tech, legal, and shipping.Casey and Vigna expose the challenge of replacing trusted (and not-so-trusted) institutions on which we’ve relied for centuries with a radical model that bypasses them. The Truth Machine reveals the empowerment possible when self-interested middlemen give way to the transparency of the blockchain, while highlighting the job losses, assertion of special interests, and threat to social cohesion that will accompany this shift. With the same balanced perspective they brought to The Age of Cryptocurrency, Casey and Vigna show why we all must care about the path that blockchain technology takes - moving humanity forward, not backward.
Cult of the Dead Cow: How the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the World
Menn, Joseph
(Paperback)
Cult of the Dead Cow is the tale of the oldest, most respected, and most famous American hacking group of all time. Though until now it has remained mostly anonymous, its members invented the concept of hacktivism, released the top tool for testing password security, and created what was for years the best technique for controlling computers from afar, forcing giant companies to work harder to protect customers. They contributed to the development of Tor, the most important privacy tool on the net, and helped build cyberweapons that advanced US security without injuring anyone.With its origins in the earliest days of the Internet, the cDc is full of oddball characters -- activists, artists, even future politicians. Many of these hackers have become top executives and advisors walking the corridors of power in Washington and Silicon Valley. The most famous is former Texas Congressman and current presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke, whose time in the cDc set him up to found a tech business, launch an alternative publication in El Paso, and make long-shot bets on unconventional campaigns.Today, the group and its followers are battling electoral misinformation, making personal data safer, and battling to keep technology a force for good instead of for surveillance and oppression. Cult of the Dead Cow shows how governments, corporations, and criminals came to hold immense power over individuals and how we can fight back against them.
El Salto: Aprovecha Las Nuevas Tecnologias Y Alcanza Tu Potencial
Coro, Ariel
(Paperback)
Puedes tratar de ignorarla pero es inevitable. La tecnología está transformando tu vida y el mundo que te rodea a una velocidad prácticamente incomprensible. Las reglas del juego han cambiado: desde como buscar un trabajo, educarte, promover o financiar tu negocio y hasta proteger a tu familia. Para ser exitosos, es imperativo entender cómo aprovechar estas nuevas herramientas a tu favor. En este revelador libro, Ariel Coro, el principal experto de tecnología para la comunidad hispana, te ofrece justamente eso: un pasaje a este nuevo mundo que te ayudará a lograr tus metas y alcanzar tus sueños. El salto es un manual de supervivencia para los tiempos que estamos viviendo. Ofreciendo útiles ejemplos y recursos gratuitos, Coro te mostrará cómo sacar el máximo provecho de este nuevo mundo para encontrar una ruta más directa y rápida hacia el éxito. No te quedes atrás. Conéctate y atrévete a dar “el salto” hacia un brillante y exitoso futuro.
Heartificial Intelligence: Embracing Our Humanity to Maximize Machines
Havens, John
(Paperback)
Algorithms will soon know more about us than we know ourselves Where should machine automation end? Is it acceptable to have a digital assistant arrange your calendar, but not to have a robot spouse? Are companion robots acceptable for seniors in need of comfort, but not okay for toddlers exposed to emotional software that could influence their behavior? Is it desirable to live a life within the virtual reality of Facebook’s Oculus Rift, but not if your thoughts are sold to advertisers who manipulate your purchases?We’ve entered an era where a myriad of personalization algorithms influence our every decision, and the lines between human assistance, automation, and extinction have blurred. We need to create ethical standards for the Artificial Intelligence usurping our lives, and allow individuals to control their identity based on their values. Otherwise, we sacrifice our humanity for productivity versus purpose and for profits versus people. Featuring pragmatic solutions drawing on economics, emerging technologies, and positive psychology, Heartificial Intelligence provides the first values-driven approach to algorithmic living - a definitive roadmap to help humanity embrace the present and positively define their future. Each chapter opens with a fictional vignette, helping readers imagine how they would respond to various Artificial Intelligence scenarios while demonstrating the need to codify their values, as the algorithms dominating society today are already doing. Funny, poignant, and accessible, this book paints a vivid portrait of how our lives might look in either a dystopia of robotic and corporate dominance, or a utopia where humans use technology to enhance our natural abilities to evolve into a long-lived, super-intelligent, and altruistic species.
La Dictadura de los Datos
Kaiser, Brittany
(Paperback)
La verdadera historia desde dentro de Cambridge Analytica y de cómo el Big Data, Trump y Facebook rompieron la democracia y cómo puede volver a pasar
Make Your Own PuzzleScript Games!
Anthropy, Anna
(Softcover)
Fun introduction to game development by well-known game designer using PuzzleScript, a free online tool for creating puzzles/platform games.PuzzleScript is a free, web-based tool you can use to create puzzle games. In a PuzzleScript game, you move objects around to solve problems and play through the levels.In Make Your Own PuzzleScript Games! you'll learn how to use PuzzleScript to create interactive games--no programming experience necessary! Learn the basics like how to make objects, create rules, and add levels. You'll also learn how to edit, test, and share your games online.Learn how to:• Decorate your game with fun backgrounds• Write rules that define how objects interact• Add obstacles like laser guns and guards• Herd cats and even pull off a robot heist!With colorful illustrations and plenty of examples for inspiration, Make Your Own PuzzleScript Games! will take you from puzzle solver to game designer in just a few clicks!
The Soul of a New Machine
Kidder, Tracy
(Paperback)
Tracy Kidder's Pulitzer Prize winning phenomenon! From the bestselling author of House and Among Schoolchildren comes the astonishing true story of the "Hardy Boys" and "Microkids" of Data General Corporation--dedicated technological wizards who envisioned the impossible...then battled time, corporate intrigue and the odds to bring their dream to breathtaking life. A momentous achievement, The Soul of a New Machine is the epic an unforgettable human adventure - an enthralling celebration of the eternal spirit of American invention.
Tubes
Blum, Andrew
(Paperback)
Design Observer Best Book of the Year Tubes looks behind the scenes of our digital lives at the physical heart of the Internet itself. This is a book about real places on the map: their sounds and smells, their storied pasts, their physical details, and the people who live there. Sharing tales of his on-the-ground reporting, along with lucid explanations about how the Internet works, Blum's eye-opening travelogue offers a unique perspective on the role of technology in our lives.
Writing on the Wall: Social Media--The First Two Thousand Years
Standage, Tom
(Paperback)
Social media is anything but a new phenomenon. From the papyrus letters that Cicero and other Roman statesmen used to exchange news, to the hand-printed tracts of the Reformation and the pamphlets that spread propaganda during the American and French revolutions, the ways people shared information with their peers in the past are echoed in the present. After decades of newspapers, radio, and television dominating in dissemination of information, the Internet has spawned a reemergence of social media as a powerful new way for individuals to share information with their friends, driving public discourse in new ways. Standage reminds us how historical social networks have much in common with modern social media. The Catholic Church's dilemmas in responding to Martin Luther's attacks are similar to those of today's large institutions in responding to criticism on the Internet, for example, and seventeenth-century complaints about the distractions of coffeehouses mirror modern concerns about social media. Invoking figures from Thomas Paine to Vinton Cerf, co-inventor of the Internet, Standage explores themes that have long been debated, from the tension between freedom of expression and censorship to social media's role in spurring innovation and fomenting revolution. Writing on the Wall draws on history to cast provocative new light on today's social media and encourages debate and discussion about how we'll communicate in the future.
Everything You Need to Know About Social Media (Without Having to Call A Kid)
Van Susteren, Greta
(Softcover)
The most practical, thorough, and reader-friendly guide around to living well on social media. From answering basic questions like “What’s the best site for you?” to “How to Tweet” and “What does it mean to ‘Tag’ someone?” to addressing important moral and behavioral issues like how to protect your privacy, how to avoid being roasted online, and whether it’s okay to get your news from Facebook, this is the essential handbook for anyone who wants to stay up to date with today’s changing technology.
200+ Ways to Protect Your Privacy: Simple Ways to Prevent Hacks and Protect Your Privacy - On and Offline
Rogers, Jeni
(Paperback)
Discover simple strategies for protecting your personal and confidential information on and offline with this essential and easy-to-understand guide. We all know that the internet can serve as a hotbed for identity theft. But it isn’t the only place where your privacy can be breached. In fact, there are lots of ways you can protect your privacy (or diminish it) that have little or nothing to do with access to the internet. Your home, your photos, your trash can, your kids, your favorite restaurant or store - and even you have the ability to unknowingly reveal your private information to everyone from thieves to busybodies. But you don’t need to hire a specialist to keep your information safe - you can do it yourself with these 200+ easy-to-implement tactics, some of which include:• Shredding hard copies of bills• Turning off Bluetooth when not in use• Using a firewall• Hiding spare keys in an unusual placeKeeping your information secure lies in your hands - make sure you’re not putting yourself at risk in your daily habits with this essential guide.
Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self
Zomorodi, Manoush
(Hardcover)
It’s time to move "doing nothing" to the top of your to-do list.In 2015 Manoush Zomorodi, host of WNYC’s popular podcast and radio show Note to Self, led tens of thousands of listeners through an experiment to help them unplug from their devices, get bored, jump-start their creativity, and change their lives. Bored and Brilliant builds on that experiment to show us how to rethink our gadget use to live better and smarter in this new digital ecosystem. Manoush explains the connection between boredom and original thinking, exploring how we can harness boredom’s hidden benefits to become our most productive and creative selves without totally abandoning our gadgets in the process. Grounding the book in the neuroscience and cognitive psychology of “mind wandering” - what our brains do when we're doing nothing at all - Manoush includes practical steps you can take to ease the nonstop busyness and enhance your ability to dream, wonder, and gain clarity in your work and life. The outcome is mind-blowing. Unplug and read on.
The History of the Future: Oculus, Facebook, and the Revolution That Swept Virtual Reality
Harris, Blake J.
(Paperback)
The dramatic, larger-than-life true story behind the founding of Oculus, its quest for virtual reality, and its founder's contentious battle for political freedom against Facebook, from the bestselling author of Console Wars.In The History of the Future, Harris once again deep-dives into a tech drama for the ages to expertly tell the larger-than-life true story of Oculus, the virtual reality company founded in 2012 that - less than two years later - would catch the attention of Mark Zuckerberg and wind up being bought by Facebook for over $2 billion dollars.This incredible underdog story begins with inventor Palmer Luckey, then just a nineteen-year-old dreamer, living alone in a camper trailer in Long Beach, California. At the time, virtual reality - long-hailed as the ultimate technology - was so costly and experimental that it was unattainable outside of a few research labs and military training facilities. But with the founding of Oculus, and the belief that his tantalizing vision of the future could one day be more than science fiction, Luckey put everything he had into creating a device that would allow gamers like him to step into virtual worlds and, in doing so, hopefully kickstart a VR revolution. With the help of an industry legend, a serial entrepreneur, and a slew of colorful characters - including those behind gaming sensations like Doom, Words with Friends, and Guitar Hero - Luckey’s scrappy startup would finally deliver the dream of immersive and affordable virtual reality to consumers, leading geeks and gamers to be excited in a way that they hadn’t been in years, and tech firms and investors scrambling to get in on the action before it was too late.Over the course of three years (and with unprecedented access from Oculus and Facebook), Harris conducted hundreds of interviews with key players in the VR revolution - including Luckey, his partners, and their cult of dreamers - to weave together a rich, cinematic narrative that captures the breakthroughs, breakdowns, and human drama of trying to change the world. The result is a supremely accessible, entertaining look at the birth of a new multi-billion-dollar industry; one full of heroes, villains, and twists at every corner. Take, for instance, Harris’ own discovery while writing this story. When he started this endeavor, he had no idea that this tale would somehow involve Donald Trump, billion-dollar lawsuits, illegal practices, and end with Luckey - eventually ousted from Facebook - as one of the most polarizing figures in Silicon Valley.
Knock 'em Dead Social Networking: For Job Search and Professional Success
Yate, Martin
(Paperback)
New York Times bestselling author Martin Yate has helped millions of job seekers land the job they want. Now, he shows you how to use his proven social networking strategies to build your brand and market your skills across an ever-growing network. Today, most employers use popular social media platforms like LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook, and Twitter for recruitment. With millions of professionals also social networking, it's essential to create a brand that stands out.With Knock 'em Dead Social Networking, you can learn how to integrate social networking into every aspect of your job search. You'll learn how to create compelling social media profiles that dramatically increase your visibility, how to build professionally relevant networks, and how to reach out directly to the hiring managers who can most influence your career. You'll develop networks that help you navigate a long work life, and gain greater control over your professional destiny.
Life Finds a Way: What Evolution Teaches Us About Creativity
Wagner, Andreas
(Hardcover)
How the principles of biological innovation can help us overcome creative challenges in art, business, and science In Life Finds a Way, biologist Andreas Wagner reveals the deep symmetry between innovation in biological evolution and human cultural creativity. Rarely is either a linear climb to perfection - instead, "progress" is typically marked by a sequence of peaks, plateaus, and pitfalls. For instance, in Picasso's forty-some iterations of Guernica, we see the same combination of small steps, incessant reshuffling, and large, almost reckless, leaps that characterize the way evolution transformed a dinosaur's grasping claw into a condor's soaring wing. By understanding these principles, we can also better realize our own creative potential to find new solutions to adversity. Ultimately, Life Finds a Way offers a new framework for the nature of creativity, enabling us to better adapt, grow, and change in art, business, or science - that is, in life.
Thinking Machines: The Quest for Artificial Intelligence - and Where It's Taking Us Next
Dormehl, Luke
(Paperback)
When most of us think about Artificial Intelligence, our minds go straight to cyborgs, robots, and sci-fi thrillers where machines take over the world. But the truth is that AI is already among us. It exists in our smartphones, fitness trackers, and refrigerators that tell us when the milk will expire. In some ways, the future that people dreamed of at the World's Fair in the 1960s is already here. We're teaching our machines how to think like humans, and they're learning at an incredible rate.In Thinking Machines, technology journalist Luke Dormehl takes us through the history of AI and reveals the role it plays in our everyday lives. Furthermore, he offers a glimpse of the incredible future that's much closer than many would imagine. This remarkable book invites you to marvel at what now seems commonplace and to reimagine what it means to be human in the face of accelerating machine intelligence.
8-Bit Apocalypse: The Untold Story of Atari's Missile Command
Rubens, Alex
(Hardcover)
Before Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and even Super Mario Bros., the video game industry exploded in the late 1970s with the advent of the video arcade. Leading the charge was Atari Inc., the creator of, among others, the iconic game Missile Command. The first game to double as a commentary on culture, Missile Command put the players’ fingers on “the button,” making them responsible for the fate of civilization in a no-win scenario, all for the price of a quarter. The game was marvel of modern culture, helping usher in both the age of the video game and the video game lifestyle. Its groundbreaking implications inspired a fanatical culture that persists to this day. As fascinating as the cultural reaction to Missile Command were the programmers behind it. Before the era of massive development teams and worship of figures like Steve Jobs, Atari was manufacturing arcade machines designed, written, and coded by individual designers. As earnings from their games entered the millions, these creators were celebrated as geniuses in their time; once dismissed as nerds and fanatics, they were now being interviewed for major publications, and partied like Wall Street traders. However, the toll on these programmers was high: developers worked 120-hour weeks, often opting to stay in the office for days on end while under a deadline. Missile Command creator David Theurer threw himself particularly fervently into his work, prompting not only declining health and a suffering relationship with his family, but frequent nightmares about nuclear annihilation. To truly tell the story from the inside, tech insider and writer Alex Rubens has interviewed numerous major figures from this time: Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari; David Theurer, the creator of Missile Command; and Phil Klemmer, writer for the NBC series Chuck, who wrote an entire episode for the show about Missile Command and its mythical “kill screen.” Taking readers 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. Missile Command: The True Story Behind the Classic Video Game offers the first in-depth, personal history of an era for which fans have a lot of nostalgia.
Automate This: How Algorithms Took Over Our Markets, Our Jobs, and the World
Steiner, Christopher
(Paperback)
In this fascinating book, Steiner tells the story of how algorithms took over and shows why the “bot revolution” is about to spill into every aspect of our lives.
A Girl's Life Online
Tarbox, Katherine
(Paperback)
Katherine Tarbox was thirteen when she met twenty-three-year-old "Mark" in an online chat room. A top student and nationally ranked swimmer attending an elite school in an affluent Connecticut town, Katie was also a lonely and self-conscious eighth-grader who craved the attention her workaholic parents couldn't give her. "Mark" seemed to understand her; he told her she was smart and wonderful. When they set a date to finally meet while Katie was in Texas for a swim competition, she walked into a hotel room and discovered who - and what - her cyber soul mate really was. In A Girl's Life Online , Tarbox, now eighteen, tells her story - an eye-opening tale of one teenager's descent into the seductive world of the Internet. Tarbox's harrowing experience with her online boyfriend would affect her life for years to come and result in her becoming the first "unnamed minor" to test a federal law enacted to protect kids from online sexual predators. In an age when a new generation is growing up online, Tarbox's memoir is a cautionary tale for the Internet Age.
In the Beginning...Was the Command Line
Stephenson, Neal
(Softcover)
In the Beginning...wass the Command Line is a thoughtful, irreverent, hilarious treatise on the cyber-culture past and present; on operating system tyrannies and downloaded popular revolutions; on the Internet, Disney World, Big Bangs, not to mention the meaning of life itself. SC, 151 pages.
Smarter Than You Think
Thompson, Clive
(Paperback)
It's undeniable - technology is changing the way we think. But is it for the better? Amid a chorus of doomsayers, Clive Thompson delivers a resounding "yes." The Internet age has produced a radical new style of human intelligence, worthy of both celebration and analysis. We learn more and retain it longer, write and think with global audiences, and even gain an ESP-like awareness of the world around us. Modern technology is making us smarter, better connected, and often deeper - both as individuals and as a society. In Smarter Than You Think Thompson shows that every technological innovation - from the written word to the printing press to the telegraph - has provoked the very same anxieties that plague us today. We panic that life will never be the same, that our attentions are eroding, that culture is being trivialized. But as in the past, we adapt - learning to use the new and retaining what's good of the old. Thompson introduces us to a cast of extraordinary characters who augment their minds in inventive ways. There's the seventy-six-year old millionaire who digitally records his every waking moment - giving him instant recall of the events and ideas of his life, even going back decades. There's a group of courageous Chinese students who mounted an online movement that shut down a $1.6 billion toxic copper plant. There are experts and there are amateurs, including a global set of gamers who took a puzzle that had baffled HIV scientists for a decade - and solved it collaboratively in only one month. Smarter Than You Think isn't just about pioneers. It's about everyday users of technology and how our digital tools - from Google to Twitter to Facebook and smartphones - are giving us new ways to learn, talk, and share our ideas. Thompson harnesses the latest discoveries in social science to explore how digital technology taps into our long-standing habits of mind - pushing them in powerful new directions. Our thinking will continue to evolve as newer tools enter our lives. Smarter Than You Think embraces and extols this transformation, presenting an exciting vision of the present and the future.
The Tetris Effect: The Game that Hypnotized the World
Ackerman, Dan
(Hardcover)
The definitive story of a game so great, even the Cold War couldn't stop it.Tetris is perhaps the most instantly recognizable, popular video game ever made. But how did an obscure Soviet programmer, working on frail, antiquated computers, create a product which has now earned nearly 1 billion in sales? How did a makeshift game turn into a worldwide sensation, which has been displayed at the Museum of Modern Art, inspired a big-budget sci-fi movie, and been played in outer space?A quiet but brilliant young man, Alexey Pajitnov had long nurtured a love for the obscure puzzle game pentominoes, and became obsessed with turning it into a computer game. Little did he know that the project that he labored on alone, hour after hour, would soon become the most addictive game ever made.In this fast-paced business story, reporter Dan Ackerman reveals how Tetris became one of the world's first viral hits, passed from player to player, eventually breaking through the Iron Curtain into the West. British, American, and Japanese moguls waged a bitter fight over the rights, sending their fixers racing around the globe to secure backroom deals, while a secretive Soviet organization named ELORG chased down the game's growing global profits.The Tetris Effect is an homage to both creator and creation, and a must-read for anyone who's ever played the game-which is to say everyone.
The Ultimate Roblox Book: An Unofficial Guide
Jagneaux, David
(Paperback)
Build and create your own Roblox world with this bestselling easy and fun guide!Roblox, the largest user-generated online gaming platform that allows users to create and share their own game worlds and gaming creations, has taken the digital world by storm. There are so many games and social worlds to create with the platform, and this guide gives you the advice you need to get started. With everything from instructions for playing the games to tips on creating your own games and worlds to the basics of coding, The Ultimate Roblox Book can help you to become a top Roblox designer.
Autonomy: The Quest to Build the Driverless Car-And How It Will Reshape Our World
Burns, Lawrence D.
(Paperback)
An automotive and tech world insider investigates the quest to develop and perfect the driverless car—an innovation that promises to be the most disruptive change to our way of life since the smartphoneWe stand on the brink of a technological revolution. Soon, few of us will own our own automobiles and instead will get around in driverless electric vehicles that we summon with the touch of an app. We will be liberated from driving, prevent over 90% of car crashes, provide freedom of mobility to the elderly and disabled, and decrease our dependence on fossil fuels. Autonomy is the story of the maverick engineers and computer nerds who are creating the revolution. Longtime advisor to the Google Self-Driving Car team and former GM research and development chief Lawrence D. Burns provides the perfectly-timed history of how we arrived at this point, in a character-driven and heavily reported account of the unlikely thinkers who accomplished what billion-dollar automakers never dared.Beginning with the way 9/11 spurred the U.S. government to set a million-dollar prize for a series of off-road robot races in the Mojave Desert up to the early 2016 stampede to develop driverless technology, Autonomy is a page-turner that represents a chronicle of the past, diagnosis of the present, and prediction of the future—the ultimate guide to understanding the driverless car and navigating the revolution it sparks.
We Are the Nerds: The Birth and Tumultuous Life of Reddit, the Internet's Culture Laboratory
Lagorio-Chafkin, Christine
(Hardcover)
Reddit hails itself as 'the front page of the Internet'. It's the sixth most-visited website in the world -- and yet, millions have no idea what it is. They should be paying attention.We Are the Nerds takes readers inside this captivating, maddening enterprise, whose army of obsessed users have been credited with everything from solving crimes and spurring millions in charitable donations to seeding alt-right fury and even landing Donald Trump in the White House. Reddit has become a mirror of the Internet itself: It has dark trenches, shiny memes, malicious trolls, and a heart-warming ability to connect people across cultures, oceans, and ideological divides.This is the gripping story of how Reddit's founders, Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, transformed themselves from student video-gamers into Silicon Valley millionaires as they turned their creation into an icon of the digital age. But the journey was often fraught. Reporting on Reddit for more than six years, conducting hundreds of interviews and gaining exclusive access to its founders, Christine Lagorio-Chafkin has written the definitive account of the birth and life of Reddit. Packed with revelatory details about its biggest triumphs and controversies, this inside look at Reddit includes fresh insights on the relationship between Huffman and Ohanian, staff turmoil, the tragic life of Aaron Swartz, and Reddit's struggle to become profitable.In a time when we are increasingly concerned about privacy and manipulation on social platforms, We Are the Nerds reveals Reddit's central role in the dissemination of culture and information in history's first fully digital century. Rigorously reported and highly entertaining, We Are the Nerds explores how this unique platform has changed the way we all communicate today.
100% Unofficial Fortnite Pro Guide
Lipscombe, Daniel
(Hardcover)
Know Fortnite: Battle Royale well, but want to play like a real pro? Look no further. The 100% UnofficialFortnite Pro Guide will help you take your building to the next level. And if you want to look great on the battlefield, this book includes a showcase of some of the best skins available, and plenty of emotes to pair with them. There's even a rundown of some of the cutest pets available in the game, for that extra fancy back bling. With colorful graphics and awesome pro tips, this is the definitive guide to Fortnite. First, gain in-depth knowledge on how to best to play on mobile devices. Then, discover methods to play your way to pro-level status with better weapons to pick up, new items to score, tactical traps to trick enemies, and faster—and more creative—builds that go way beyond the basics. If your noob days are over and you're ready to level up, this guide will show you all the ways you can master multiple areas of game-play.Personalizing your game is key as a Fortnite pro, and this guide helps you express yourself in fun new ways. New emotes that go way beyond the Floss? Cool new skins that will frighten and delight? 100% Unofficial Fortnite Pro Guide details them all to show you the best way to throw shade, show excitement, and even distract competitors with cosmic cosmetics to boost your game. You can even bring pet bling to the battlefield! This backpack companion offers great company as you venture into battle.Next, learn to play your way and add finesse to your game-play style with Limited-Time Modes that prove there's more to game types than Squads and Solo play. From what not to do to teamwork tips, it's all in a day's work as a Fortnite pro and now you can become an expert in how to be faster, stronger, and smarter on the battlefield.Finally, see how the Fortnite landscape has evolved and changed with an all-new map and a countdown of the top 10 most epic moments in the game so far.So fire up your PC, Mac, Xbox, PS4, Nintendo Switch, or iOS device, lock 'n' load and prepare to battle like the pros…in style!
AIQ: How Artificial Intelligence Works and How We Can Harness Its Power for a Better World
Polson, Nick
(Paperback)
Dozens of times per day, we all interact with intelligent machines that are constantly learning from the wealth of data now available to them. These machines, from smart phones to talking robots to self-driving cars, are remaking the world in the 21st century in the same way that the Industrial Revolution remade the world in the 19th century.AIQ is based on a simple premise: if you want to understand the modern world, then you have to know a little bit of the mathematical language spoken by intelligent machines. AIQ will teach you that language—but in an unconventional way, anchored in stories rather than equations.You will meet a fascinating cast of historical characters who have a lot to teach you about data, probability, and better thinking. Along the way, you'll see how these same ideas are playing out in the modern age of big data and intelligent machines—and how these technologies will soon help you to overcome some of your built-in cognitive weaknesses, giving you a chance to lead a happier, healthier, more fulfilled life.
Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other
Turkle, Sherry
(Paperback)
A groundbreaking book by one of the most important thinkers of our time shows how technology is warping our social lives and our inner ones.Technology has become the architect of our intimacies. Online, we fall prey to the illusion of companionship, gathering thousands of Twitter and Facebook friends, and confusing tweets and wall posts with authentic communication. But this relentless connection leads to a deep solitude. MIT professor Sherry Turkle argues that as technology ramps up, our emotional lives ramp down. Based on hundreds of interviews and with a new introduction taking us to the present day, Alone Together describes changing, unsettling relationships between friends, lovers, and families.
Bitcoin Billionaires: A True Story of Genius, Betrayal, and Redemption
Mezrich, Ben
(Hardcover)
Ben Mezrich's 2009 bestseller The Accidental Billionaires is the definitive account of Facebook's founding and the basis for the Academy Award–winning film The Social Network. Two of the story's iconic characters are Harvard students Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss: identical twins, Olympic rowers, and foils to Mark Zuckerberg. Bitcoin Billionaires is the story of the brothers’ redemption and revenge in the wake of their epic legal battle with Facebook.Planning to start careers as venture capitalists, the brothers quickly discover that no one will take their money after their fight with Zuckerberg. While nursing their wounds in Ibiza, they accidentally run into an eccentric character who tells them about a brand-new idea: cryptocurrency. Immersing themselves in what is then an obscure and sometimes sinister world, they begin to realize “crypto” is, in their own words, "either the next big thing or total bulls--t." There’s nothing left to do but make a bet.From the Silk Road to the halls of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Bitcoin Billionaires will take us on a wild and surprising ride while illuminating a tantalizing economic future. On November 26, 2017, the Winklevoss brothers became the first bitcoin billionaires. Here’s the story of how they got there - as only Ben Mezrich could tell it.
Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War
Kaplan, Fred
(Paperback)
As cyber-attacks join terrorists on the list of global threats, and as top generals warn of a coming cyber war, Slate columnist Fred Kaplan's timely and enlightening Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War chronicles, in fascinating detail, an unknown past that shines an unsettling light on our future.
Defying Reality: The Inside Story of the Virtual Reality Revolution
Ewalt, David M.
(Hardcover)
You’ve heard about virtual reality, seen the new gadgets, and read about how VR will be the next big thing. But you probably haven’t yet realized the extent to which this technology will change the way we live. We used to be bound to a physical reality, but new immersive computer simulations allow us to escape our homes and bodies. Suddenly anyone can see what it’s like to stand on the peak of Mount Everest. A person who can’t walk can experience a marathon from the perspective of an Olympic champion. And why stop there? Become a dragon and fly through the universe. But it’s not only about spectacle. Virtual and augmented reality will impact nearly every aspect of our lives—commerce, medicine, politics—the applications are infinite.It may sound like science fiction, but this vision of the future drives billions of dollars in business and is a top priority for such companies as Facebook, Google, and Sony. Yet little is known about the history of these technologies. In Defying Reality, David M. Ewalt traces the story from ancient amphitheaters to Cold War military laboratories, through decades of hype and failure, to a nineteen-year-old video game aficionado who made the impossible possible. Ewalt looks at how businesses are already using this tech to revolutionize the world around us, and what we can expect in the future. Writing for a mainstream audience as well as for technology enthusiasts, Ewalt offers a unique perspective on VR. With firsthand accounts and on-the-ground reporting, Defying Reality shows how virtual reality will change our work, our play, and the way we relate to one another.
The History of the World According to Facebook (Revised Edition)
Overstreet, Wylie
(Paperback)
A revised and expanded edition of the bestselling parody that includes thirty-pages of new text, photos, and contemporary subjects—a clever and fresh historical chronicle.What if Facebook had emerged with the Big Bang, and every historical event took place online? Imagine how we’d we see history if . . .On April 15, 1865, Abraham Lincoln updated his status: "Taking the missus to the theater"God and Stephen Hawking trolled each other in a comment war over the creation of the universe?Alexander the Great "checked into" all the countries he conqueredDonald Trump and Vladimir Putin "Liked" each other's cryptic statusesIrreverent and clever, The History of the World According to Facebook goes back through time, from the beginning of the world to the present, to cover all the major events and eras of human history, such as the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, and the Information Age. Wylie Overstreet brings the book up to date with three-dozen pages of additional material on contemporary figures and topics, from Caitlin Jenner to Deflategate to MAGA and Trump.Filled with hundreds of actual figures from across the centuries and thousands of invented statuses, comments, and actions lampooning Facebook users’ penchant for oversharing, abbreviation, self-importance, and lazy jargon, The History of the World According to Facebook defies all attempts at taking the multi-billion user social media platform SRSLY. It is the funniest parody of history and the dawn of man since, well, the dawn of man.
How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars: The Snapchat Story
Gallagher, Billy
(Hardcover)
In 2013 Evan Spiegel, the brash CEO of the social network Snapchat, and his co-founder Bobby Murphy stunned the press when they walked away from a three-billion-dollar offer from Facebook: how could an app teenagers use to text dirty photos dream of a higher valuation? Was this hubris, or genius?In How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars, tech journalist Billy Gallagher takes us inside the rise of one of Silicon Valley's hottest start-ups. Snapchat developed from a simple wish for disappearing pictures as Stanford junior Reggie Brown nursed regrets about photos he had sent. After an epic feud between best friends, Brown lost his stake in the company, while Spiegel has gone on to make a name for himself as a visionary - if ruthless - CEO worth billions, linked to celebrities like Taylor Swift and his wife, Miranda Kerr.A fellow Stanford undergrad and fraternity brother of the company’s founding trio, Gallagher has covered Snapchat from the start. He brings unique access to a company Bloomberg Business called "a cipher in the Silicon Valley technology community." Gallagher offers insight into challenges Snapchat faces as it transitions from a playful app to one of the tech industry’s preeminent public companies. In the tradition of great business narratives, How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars offers the definitive account of a company whose goal is no less than to remake the future of entertainment.
Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts
Abramson, Jill
(Paperback)
Merchants of Truth is the groundbreaking and gripping story of the precarious state of the news business told by one of our most eminent journalists.Jill Abramson follows four companies: The New York Times, The Washington Post, BuzzFeed, and VICE Media over a decade of disruption and radical adjustment. The new digital reality nearly kills two venerable newspapers with an aging readership while creating two media behemoths with a ballooning and fickle audience of millennials. We get to know the defenders of the legacy presses as well as the outsized characters who are creating the new speed-driven media competitors. The players include Jeff Bezos and Marty Baron (The Washington Post), Arthur Sulzberger and Dean Baquet (The New York Times), Jonah Peretti (BuzzFeed), and Shane Smith (VICE) as well as their reporters and anxious readers.Merchants of Truth raises crucial questions that concern the well-being of our society. We are facing a crisis in trust that threatens the free press. Abramson’s book points us to the future.
The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything
Vigna, Paul
(Paperback)
Big banks have grown bigger and more entrenched. Privacy exists only until the next hack. Credit card fraud is a fact of life. Many of the "legacy systems" once designed to make our lives easier and our economy more efficient are no longer up to the task. Yet there is a way past all this - a new kind of operating system with the potential to revolutionize vast swaths of our economy: the blockchain. In The Truth Machine, Michael J. Casey and Paul Vigna demystify the blockchain and explain why it can restore personal control over our data, assets, and identities; grant billions of excluded people access to the global economy; and shift the balance of power to revive society's faith in itself. They reveal the disruption it promises for industries including finance, tech, legal, and shipping. Casey and Vigna expose the challenge of replacing trusted (and not-so-trusted) institutions on which we've relied for centuries with a radical model that bypasses them. The Truth Machine reveals the empowerment possible when self-interested middlemen give way to the transparency of the blockchain, while highlighting the job losses, assertion of special interests, and threat to social cohesion that will accompany this shift. With the same balanced perspective they brought to The Age of Cryptocurrency, Casey and Vigna show why listeners must care about the path that blockchain technology takes - moving humanity forward, not backward.
Autonomy: The Quest to Build the Driverless Car, and How It Will Reshape Our World
Burns, Lawrence D.
(Hardcover)
An automotive and tech world insider investigates the quest to develop and perfect the driverless car - an innovation that promises to be the most disruptive change to our way of life since the smartphoneWe stand on the brink of a technological revolution. Soon, few of us will own our own automobiles and instead will get around in driverless electric vehicles that we summon with the touch of an app. We will be liberated from driving, prevent over 90% of car crashes, provide freedom of mobility to the elderly and disabled, and decrease our dependence on fossil fuels. Autonomy is the story of the maverick engineers and computer nerds who are creating the revolution. Longtime advisor to the Google Self-Driving Car team and former GM research and development chief Lawrence D. Burns provides the perfectly-timed history of how we arrived at this point, in a character-driven and heavily reported account of the unlikely thinkers who accomplished what billion-dollar automakers never dared.Beginning with the way 9/11 spurred the U.S. government to set a million-dollar prize for a series of off-road robot races in the Mojave Desert up to the early 2016 stampede to develop driverless technology, Autonomy is a page-turner that represents a chronicle of the past, diagnosis of the present, and prediction of the future - the ultimate guide to understanding the driverless car and navigating the revolution it sparks.
Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self
Zomorodi, Manoush
(Paperback)
It’s time to move “doing nothing” to the top of your to-do list.In 2015 Manoush Zomorodi, creator of WNYC’s popular podcast and radio show Note to Self, led tens of thousands of listeners through an experiment to help them unplug from their devices, get bored, jump-start their creativity, and change their lives. Bored and Brilliant builds on that experiment to show us how to rethink our gadget use to live better and smarter in this new digital ecosystem. Manoush explains the connection between boredom and original thinking, exploring how we can harness boredom’s hidden benefits to become our most productive and creative selves without totally abandoning our gadgets in the process. Grounding the book in the neuroscience and cognitive psychology of "mind wandering" what our brains do when we're doing nothing at all - Manoush includes practical steps you can take to ease the nonstop busyness and enhance your ability to dream, wonder, and gain clarity in your work and life. The outcome is mind-blowing. Unplug and read on.
Coding for Parents: Everything You Need to Know to Confidently Help with Homework
Wilson, Frazer
(Paperback)
Facing the daunting process of helping with coding homework? This book will prepare you! No experience is necessary, as this book will guide you through the basics, from elementary to intermediate, building a foundation of knowledge of key concepts, terminology, and techniques. Coding is made clear in simple English, accompanied by functional diagrams and illustrations. You'll be coding in no time!
Fuzzy Logic
McNeil, Daniel
(Softcover)
Imagine a technology so revolutionary that it gives computers the ability to make decisions more like human beings. Professor Lotfi Zadeh masterminded "fuzzy logic"--a way of programming computers to "make decisions" based on imprecise data and complex situations. In Fuzzy Logic, Paul Freiberger and Daniel McNeill relate the compelling tale of this remarkable new technology, the genius who brought it to life, and how it will soon affect the lives of every one of us. SC, 319 pages.
The Sentient Machine: The Coming Age of Artificial Intelligence
Husain, Amir
(Paperback)
The future is now. Acclaimed technologist and inventor Amir Husain explains how we can live amidst the coming age of sentient machines and artificial intelligence—and not only survive, but thrive.Artificial “machine” intelligence is playing an ever-greater role in our society. We are already using cruise control in our cars, automatic checkout at the drugstore, and are unable to live without our smartphones. The discussion around AI is polarized; people think either machines will solve all problems for everyone, or they will lead us down a dark, dystopian path into total human irrelevance. Regardless of what you believe, the idea that we might bring forth intelligent creation can be intrinsically frightening. But what if our greatest role as humans so far is that of creators?Amir Husain, a brilliant inventor and computer scientist, argues that we are on the cusp of writing our next, and greatest, creation myth. It is the dawn of a new form of intellectual diversity, one that we need to embrace in order to advance the state of the art in many critical fields, including security, resource management, finance, and energy. “In The Sentient Machine, Husain prepares us for a brighter future; not with hyperbole about right and wrong, but with serious arguments about risk and potential” (Dr. Greg Hyslop, Chief Technology Officer, The Boeing Company). He addresses broad existential questions surrounding the coming of AI: Why are we valuable? What can we create in this world? How are we intelligent? What constitutes progress for us? And how might we fail to progress? Husain boils down complex computer science and AI concepts into clear, plainspoken language and draws from a wide variety of cultural and historical references to illustrate his points. Ultimately, Husain challenges many of our societal norms and upends assumptions we hold about “the good life.”
Kingdom of Lies: Unnerving Adventures in the World of Cybercrime
Fazzini, Kate
(Hardcover)
In the tradition of Michael Lewis and Tom Wolfe, a fascinating and frightening behind-the-scenes look at the interconnected cultures of hackers, security specialists, and law enforcement.A 19-year-old Romanian student stumbles into a criminal ransomware ring in her village. Soon she is extorting Silicon Valley billionaires for millions--without knowing the first thing about computers.A veteran cybersecurity specialist has built a deep network of top notch hackers in one of the world’s largest banks. But then the bank brings in a cadre of ex-military personnel to “help.”A cynical Russian only leaves his tiny New Jersey apartment to hack sports cars at a high performance shop in Newark. But he opens his door to a consultant who needs his help.A hotel doorman in China once served in the People’s Army, stealing intellectual property from American companies. Now he uses his skills to build up a private side-business selling the data he takes from travelers to Shanghai’s commercial center.Kingdom of Lies follows the intertwined stories of cybercriminals and ethical hackers as they jump from criminal trend to criminal trend, crisis to crisis. A cybersecurity professional turned journalist, Kate Fazzini illuminates the many lies companies and governments tell us about our security, the lies criminals tell to get ahead, and the lies security leaders tell to make us think they are better at their jobs than they are.
The Darkening Web: The War for Cyberspace
Klimburg, Alexander
(Hardcover)
No single invention of the last half century has changed the way we live now as much as the Internet. Alexander Klimburg was a member of the generation for whom it was a utopian ideal turned reality: a place where ideas, information, and knowledge could be shared and new freedoms found and enjoyed. Two decades later, the future isn’t so bright any more: increasingly, the Internet is used as a weapon and a means of domination by states eager to exploit or curtail global connectivity in order to further their national interests.Klimburg is a leading voice in the conversation on the implications of this dangerous shift, and in The Darkening Web, he explains why we underestimate the consequences of states’ ambitions to project power in cyberspace at our peril: Not only have hacking and cyber operations fundamentally changed the nature of political conflict - ensnaring states in a struggle to maintain a precarious peace that could rapidly collapse into all-out war - but the rise of covert influencing and information warfare has enabled these same global powers to create and disseminate their own distorted versions of reality in which anything is possible. At stake are not only our personal data or the electrical grid, but the Internet as we know it today - and with it the very existence of open and democratic societies.Blending anecdote with argument, Klimburg brings us face-to-face with the range of threats the struggle for cyberspace presents, from an apocalyptic scenario of debilitated civilian infrastructure to a 1984-like erosion of privacy and freedom of expression. Focusing on different approaches to cyber-conflict in the US, Russia and China, he reveals the extent to which the battle for control of the Internet is as complex and perilous as the one surrounding nuclear weapons during the Cold War - and quite possibly as dangerous for humanity as a whole. Authoritative, thought-provoking, and compellingly argued, The Darkening Web makes clear that the debate about the different aspirations for cyberspace is nothing short of a war over our global values.
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