Showing titles in History & Culture

By his 40s, Peter J. Boni was an accomplished CEO, with a specialty in navigating high-tech companies out of hot water. Just before his 50th birthday, Peter’s 75-year-old mother unveiled a bombshell: His deceased father was not his biological father. Peter was conceived in 1945 via an anonymous sperm donor. The emotional upheaval upon learning that he was “misattributed” rekindled traumas long past and fueled his relentless research to find his genealogy.

Written in his early 60s, Tesla looks back on the events that shaped his life as the inventor of our modern world. Like many exceptional artists, scientists, and engineers, Tesla's senses and intellect worked on a higher level, which often afflicted him physically. Yet, he overcame, and used his special abilities and strong educational background to make electricity the servant of man.

Brought to you by Penguin. Since 2005, YouTube has exploded, giving a platform to unique and valuable voices, but also to propaganda, misinformation and illicit videos. The algorithm which determines whether a channel lives or dies - how or when videos are seen, and how much creators earn...

Journalist Pat Duggins, National Public Radio's resident "space expert", chronicles the planning stages of the Space Shuttle program in the early 1970s, the thrill of the first flight in 1981, construction of the International Space Station in the 1990s, and the decision in the early 2000s to shut the program down.

Artificial Intelligence Agents: Learn to Build Smart AI Agents with ChatGPT—No Coding, No Experience Needed is your gateway into the future of automation—designed especially for curious beginners, busy professionals, and ambitious side-hustlers.

Before John Deere, Ford, and International Harvester became icons of American business, they were competitors in a forgotten battle for the farm. By the turn of the 20th century, four million people had left rural America and moved to cities. With the tractor, a shrinking farm population could still feed a growing world. Tractor Wars is the untold story of industry stalwarts and disruptors, inventors, and administrators racing to invent modern agriculture - a power farming revolution that would usher in a whole new world.

Brought to you by Penguin. A revelatory guide to how technology is changing the world, from the creator of Exponential View _________________________ We are entering the Exponential Age. Between faster computers, better software and bigger data, ours is the first era in human history in which...

An unfiltered, colorful romp through the IRL world of influencers that spills the tea on the multibillion-dollar industry of content creation. If you’re anything like journalist Stephanie McNeal—aka, a millennial woman—you spend hours every day indulging in Instagram’s infinite scroll...

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence and labor-saving technologies like self-checkouts and automated factories, the future of work has never been more uncertain, and even jobs requiring high levels of human interaction are no longer safe. The Last Human Job explores the human connections that underlie our work, arguing that what people do for each other in these settings is valuable and worth preserving.

In this book, you'll learn how: data science, driven by artificial intelligence and machine learning, is yielding unprecedented business insights; blockchain has the potential to restructure the economy; drones and driverless vehicles are becoming essential tools; 3-D printing is making new business models possible; augmented reality is transforming retail and manufacturing; smart speakers are redefining the rules of marketing; and humans and machines are working together to reach new levels of productivity. 

Science world luminary John Brockman assembles twenty-five of the most important scientific minds, people who have been thinking about the field artificial intelligence for most of their careers, for an unparalleled round-table examination about mind, thinking, intelligence and what it means to...

In Canada, volunteers are raising money for charity by playing marathon stints of Penn & Teller's Desert Bus, probably the worst video game ever created. Across the globe, thousands of viewers tune in to Kurt J. Mac's epic but seemingly pointless voyage towards the outer realms of Minecraft's procedurally generated world. In Iraq, mothers encourage their children to enter Call of Duty competitions to keep them off the bomb-ravaged streets of Baghdad.

This book explores the theory and practice of design justice, demonstrates how universalist design principles and practices erase certain groups of people - specifically, those who are intersectionally disadvantaged or multiply burdened under the matrix of domination (white supremacist heteropatriarchy, ableism, capitalism, and settler colonialism) - and invites listeners to "build a better world, a world where many worlds fit; linked worlds of collective liberation and ecological sustainability".  

America is about to reinvent itself for the fourth time in its history—and this time, the whole world could follow this path toward abundance. Tech expert Peter Leyden lays out a big-picture strategy for how America can harness AI to remake its economy and society, cracking open a model other...

The science behind the traits and quirks that drive creative geniuses to make spectacular breakthroughs What really distinguishes the people who literally change the world -- those creative geniuses who give us one breakthrough after another? What differentiates Marie Curie or Elon Musk from the...

‘Original and thought provoking’ Gordon Brown ‘Challenging and hopeful: a groundbreaking guide to the future’ Valerie Amos To thrive in the twenty-first century, we all need to understand the challenges coming our way. And start adapting, now. We all know there are major, overlapping...

The invention of the telephone changed the world. That’s no exaggeration. Phones are such ubiquitous features of our lives now that it can be difficult to imagine life without them, or to understand just how astonishing this invention truly was in the 19th century.

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

Throughout 2017 John Crace, the Guardian's parliamentary sketch writer, watched Prime Minister Theresa May's efforts to remain strong and stable - and, indeed, Prime Minister. He coined the term 'Maybot' for her malfunctioning public appearances. And now, in this edited collection of his...

In a world more connected than ever, we have never been more divided. The Echo Chamber Effect is a powerful and deeply thought-provoking exploration of how social media platforms quietly shape the way we think, feel, and interact. Drawing on psychology, technology, and human behaviour, Elira Fontayne exposes the subtle mechanics that transform our online experiences into self-reinforcing bubbles of belief.