Showing titles in History & Culture

In clear language, The Innovation Mandate shows leaders a step-by-step process to continually generate great ideas, implement them, and maximize their value to benefit both customers and investors. In today’s ultracompetitive marketplace, the difference between success and failure is...

In this eagerly awaited new book from the author of the best-selling Nostalgia Nerd's Retro Tech, Peter Leigh takes a fun, informative and irreverent romp through the history of more than 40 pieces of personal tech, charting the successes, failures and oddities from over five decades of our obsession with gadgetry.

Former physicist Andrew Maynard threads together his love of science-fiction movies with his expertise on emerging technologies to engage, entertain, and make you think about the relationship between technology and society. Through the imagination and creativity of science-fiction movies, Maynard introduces listeners to the profound capabilities presented by new and emerging technologies, and the complex personal and societal challenges they present.

Physical infrastructure in the United States is crumbling. The American Society of Civil Engineers has, in its latest report, given American roads and bridges a grade of D and C+, respectively, and has described roughly 65,000 bridges in the United States as 'structurally deficient'. This crisis - and one need look no further than the I-35W bridge collapse in Minnesota to see that it is indeed a crisis - shows little sign of abating short of a massive change in attitude amongst politicians and the American public.

A concise history of GPS, from its military origins to its commercial applications and ubiquity in everyday life.

Master Practical AI and Unleash the Power of ChatGPT in Just 7 Days, Even If You're an Absolute Beginner! Are you overwhelmed by Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing? Do you want to leverage ChatGPT but don’t know where to start? You're not alone. Many beginners feel alienated by jargon and technicalities. But what if mastering ChatGPT could be simple, rewarding, and achievable in just 7 days? This beginner-friendly guide is your ticket to overcoming ChatGPT fears and unlocking its full potential.

For centuries, the patent has stood as a symbol of invention—a mark of genius, a reward for creativity, a promise that innovation would be protected and shared. But behind this polished image lies a more tangled reality. Patents today are wielded less as shields and more as weapons. They grant monopolies over life-saving drugs, obstruct progress in software and biotechnology, and often reward delay, secrecy, and litigation over actual discovery. In this unflinching exploration, the author traces the journey of the patent system from its noble origins to its increasingly distorted present.

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

Things in life tend to fall apart. Cars break down. Buildings fall into disrepair. Yet today's researchers are exploiting newly understood properties of matter to program materials that physically sense, adapt, and fall together instead of apart. These materials open new directions for industrial innovation and challenge us to rethink the way we build and collaborate with our environment. Things Fall Together is a provocative guide to this emerging, often mind-bending reality, presenting a bold vision for harnessing the intelligence embedded in the material world.

Clifford Nass has developed a powerful theory: Our brains can’t fundamentally distinguish between interacting with people and interacting with devices. Nass’s discoveries push the boundaries of both psychology and technology and provide nothing less than a new blueprint for successful human relationships.

A grounding exploration of how our online prowess shapes the very essence of democracy The electronic age compels us to confront the delicate balance between the convenience of constant connectivity and the protection of personal privacy, security, and democracy itself. Presented as a two-fold...

After the Apollo program put 12 men on the moon and safely brought them home, anything seemed possible. In this spirit, the team at NASA set about developing the space shuttle, arguably the most complex piece of machinery ever created.

Where would we be without the humble toothbrush? What about a wine glass, a pair of high heels or the toilet? Comedian Katy Brand explores the extraordinary stories behind ordinary objects to help us appreciate the little things that make life so much more liveable. Did you know the first electric toothbrush was made in 1880? Or that the fork shaped British table manners and, to this day, influences the taste of the food? Or that our beds are a reflection of our attitudes to sleep, sex and status?

James Howard Kunstler's critically acclaimed and best-selling The Long Emergency, originally published in 2005, quickly became a grassroots hit, going into nine printings in hardcover. Kunstler's shocking vision of our post-oil future caught the attention of environmentalists and business leaders alike, and stimulated widespread discussion about our dependence on fossil fuels and our dysfunctional financial and government institutions.

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

Humanity's first reusable spacecraft and the most complex machine ever built, NASA's space shuttle debuted with great promise and as a dependable source of wonder and national pride. But with the Challenger catastrophe in 1986, the whole space shuttle program came into question, as did NASA itself, so long an institution that was seemingly above reproach. Wheels Stop tells the stirring story of how, after the Challenger disaster, the space shuttle not only recovered but went on to perform its greatest missions.

Delete looks at the surprising phenomenon of perfect remembering in the digital age, and reveals why we must reintroduce our capacity to forget. Digital technology empowers us as never before, yet it has unforeseen consequences as well. Potentially humiliating content on Facebook is enshrined in cyberspace for future employers to see. Google remembers everything we've searched for and when.

The world's first programmable computer was the legendary ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), built by John Mauchly and Presper Eckert. Based on original interviews with surviving participants and the first study of Mauchly and Eckert's personal papers, ENIAC is a dramatic human story and a vital contribution to the history of technology, and it restores to the two inventors the legacy they deserve.

Unsupervised examines the fast-emerging technologies and tools that are already starting to completely revolutionize our world. Beyond that, the book takes an in-depth look at how we have arrived at this dizzying point in our history, who holds the reins of these formidable technologies, mostly without any supervision. It explains why we as business leaders, entrepreneurs, academics, educators, lawmakers, investors or users and all responsible citizens must act now to influence and help oversee the future of a technological world.

The story of the rise of modern navigation technology, from radio location to GPS—and the consequent decline of privacy. What does it mean to never get lost? You Are Here examines the rise of our technologically aided era of navigational omniscience—or how we came to know exactly where we are at all times. Filled with tales of scientists and astronauts, inventors and entrepreneurs, You Are Here tells the story of how humankind ingeniously solved one of its oldest and toughest problems—only to herald a new era in which it’s impossible to hide.