Showing titles in History & Culture

In Future Histories, public interest lawyer and digital specialist Lizzie O'Shea argues that we need to stop looking forward and start looking backwards. Weaving together histories of computing and progressive social movements with modern theories of the mind, society, and self, O'Shea constructs a "usable past" that can help us determine our digital future. What, she asks, can the Paris Commune tell us about earlier experiments in sharing resources - like the internet - in common?

As we stand on the cusp of a new political reality, the contours of personal freedom and autonomy are becoming increasingly well-defined. The future holds the possibility of an existence where the barriers to living life on one’s own terms are ever-diminishing, where the power of voluntarily connected individuals challenges and reshapes the statist quo. Even though the journey toward this new reality is fraught with trade-offs and challenges, it has the potential for unprecedented freedom and philosophical fulfillment.

Today, not only is everything digital getting faster, cheaper, and smaller at an exponential rate, we also have the Internet. When these two revolutions - one in technology and the other in communications - joined, an explosive force was unleashed that changed the very nature of innovation. And with any change, we have seen many strategic blunders and extraordinary learning curves along the way.

This trenchant analysis examines the many ways our society's increasingly tenuous commitment to facts laid the groundwork for Donald Trump's rise to power. Award-winning journalist Nathan Bomey argues that Trump did not usher the post-truth era into being. He was its inevitable outcome. Bomey...

An illustrated history of American innovators -- some well known, some unknown, and all fascinating -- by the author of the bestselling The American Century...

Our devices and data are woven into our lives. We can't simply reject them. Margaret Morris argues we need to adapt technology creatively to our needs and values. In Left to Our Own Devices, Morris offers examples of individuals applying technologies in unexpected ways - uses that go beyond those intended by developers and designers. Morris examines these kinds of personalized life hacks, chronicling the ways that people have adapted technology to strengthen social connection, enhance well-being, and affirm identity.

Harness the full potential of generative AI to improve your productivity, transform your career, and boost your creativity! Brought to you by the Amazon bestselling author of Essentials of AI for Beginners, this practical, engaging guide makes generative AI easy to understand and use—no matter your background, goals, or starting point. This book stands out for its in-depth yet accessible content, so you can learn core concepts without the jargon. It also includes real-world use cases to discover how AI is already transforming diverse industries. This title also offers a balanced perspective.

With a razor wit, Nicholas Carr cuts through Silicon Valley's unsettlingly cheery vision of the technological future to ask a hard question: Have we been seduced by a lie? Gathering a decade's worth of posts from his blog, Rough Type, as well as his seminal essays, Utopia Is Creepy offers an alternative history of the digital age, chronicling its roller-coaster crazes and crashes, its blind triumphs, and its unintended consequences.

As the CEO, board member, and executive of an architecture, engineering, and construction company, you are under pressure to lead your company in the age of AI disruption. Not knowing AI’s impact on your business and how you should respond is challenging.

The Eudaemonic Pie is the bizarre true story of how a band of physicists and computer wizards took on Las Vegas. It chronicles the origins of personal computers, the history of gambling, and the comedy of living a good life governed according to reason (eudaemonia).

In the years surrounding WWI, the basic models of many technologies we use today were invented and introduced en masse. Some organizations anticipated these changes and were able to adapt, but other organizations ignored them at their peril. The iconic British television series Downton Abbey provides a glimpse into this period of societal change. Whether you are a fan of the television series or not, the examples in this audiobook provide practical advice to effectively manage technological and cultural change.

The electrifying story behind technology’s greatest breakthroughs. From the first sparks of electrification to the dawn of artificial intelligence, Visionaries, Rebels and Machines is a rip-roaring adventure through the history of technology. It reveals how curiosity, ingenuity, bold breakthroughs and pure chance have driven progress, leading to the artificial intelligence, automation and cloud computing that’s reshaping our world today. It’s not just about how we got here, but also where we’re heading.

Starting with hands, abacus, and slide rule, humans have always reached for tools to simplify math. Pocket-sized calculators ushered in modern mathematics, helped build the atomic bomb, took us to the bottom of the ocean, and accompanied us to the moon. The pocket calculator changed our world, until it was supplanted by more modern devices that, in a cruel twist of irony, it helped to create. Keith Houston transports listeners from the nascent economies of the ancient world to World War II, and into the technological arms race that led to the first affordable electronic pocket calculators.

'Low Tech Life' underscores the significance of regular reassessment and adjustment of your digital habits. It promotes an iterative approach to digital minimalism, encouraging listeners to embrace trial and error as they work backwards from their desired lifestyle to set achievable digital usage goals. Whether you're feeling the strain of constant connectivity or seeking strategies to manage your screen time better, 'Low Tech Life' will guide you towards a more mindful, fulfilling relationship with technology.

Most people think about technology as something we created to serve us, but we may well be getting to the point where we are the ones who're serving an ever more sophisticated technology. With pragmatism and optimism, Dr Tim Sharp, aka Dr Happy, outlines strategies and tools to build your confidence to positively cope with the modern world.

Future Imperfect describes and discusses technological revolutions that might happen over the next few decades, their implications, and how to deal with them. Topics range from encryption and surveillance through biotechnology and nanotechnology to life extension, mind drugs, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. One theme of the book is that the future is radically uncertain.

Screenwise offers a realistic and optimistic perspective on how to thoughtfully guide kids in the digital age. Many parents feel that their kids are addicted, detached, or distracted because of their digital devices. Using the foundation of their own values and experiences, parents and educators can learn about the digital world to help set kids up for success in a world fueled by technology.

Your company's success or failure with AI comes down to the people, not the tech. Master AI and human intelligence now, and you'll dominate the future. Fail to act, and you'll be left scrambling to catch up. You know AI is critical, but you're swamped with operational demands, buried in meetings, and short on time to figure out where to start or how to get the right things out of it. At the same time, 70% of employees are already using AI in some way—often without company approval. Meanwhile, your competition is quietly gaining an edge.

Through narratives and case studies spanning the brilliant history of engineering, Madhavan shows how the concepts of prototyping, efficiency, reliability, standards, optimization, and feedback are put to use in fields as diverse as transportation, retail, health care, and entertainment. Equal parts personal, practical, and profound, Applied Minds charts a path to a future where we apply strategies borrowed from engineering to create useful and inspired solutions to our most pressing challenges.

Empire of the Air tells the story of three American visionaries - Lee de Forest, Edwin Howard Armstrong, and David Sarnoff - whose imagination and dreams turned a hobbyist's toy into radio, launching the modern communications age. Tom Lewis weaves the story of these men and their achievements into a richly detailed and moving narrative that spans the first half of the 20th century, a time when the American romance with science and technology was at its peak.