Computer Age

Hailed by Ken Burns as one of the foremost “explainers” of technology and its effect throughout history, Tom Wheeler now turns his gaze to the public impact of entrepreneurial innovation. In Techlash, he connects the experiences of the late 19th century’s industrial Gilded Age with its echoes in the 21st century digital Gilded Age. In both cases, technology innovation and the great wealth that it created ran up against the public interest and the rights of others.

Aram Sinnreich and Jesse Gilbert explore the many unpredictable, and often surprising, ways in which data surveillance, AI, and the constant presence of algorithms impact our culture and society in the age of global networks. The authors build on this basic premise: no matter what form data takes, and what purpose we think it’s being used for, data will always have a secret life. How this data will be used, by other people in other times and places, has profound implications for every aspect of our lives—from our intimate relationships to our professional lives to our political systems.

In Distracted, journalist Maggie Jackson ponders our increasingly cyber-centric world and fears we're entering a dark age of interruption that will render us unable to think critically, work creatively or cultivate meaningful relationships.

Alan Turing can be regarded as one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century. But who was Turing, and what did he achieve during his tragically short life of 41 years? Best known as the genius who broke Germany's most secret codes during the war of 1939-45, Turing was also the father of the modern computer. Today, all who 'click-to-open' are familiar with the impact of Turing's ideas. Here, B. Jack Copeland provides an account of Turing's life and work, exploring the key elements of his life-story in tandem with his leading ideas and contributions.

Planning the invasion of Normandy, the Allies knew that decoding the communications of the Nazi high command was imperative for its success. But standing in their way was an encryption machine they called Tunny (British English for “tuna”), which was vastly more difficult to crack than the infamous Enigma cipher.

You have been awakened. Floppy disk inserted, computer turned on, a whirring, and then this sentence, followed by a blinking cursor. So begins Suspended, the first computer game to obsess seven-year-old Michael, to worm into his head and change his sense of reality. Thirty years later he will write: "Computer games have taught me the things you can't learn from people." Gamelife is the memoir of a childhood transformed by technology.

A new way of thinking that improves how we work, create and live, empowering listeners to outsmart AI—a tool that can never do what humans do.

Are you looking to teach children how to code? Or, are you looking to start coding? This book on beginner HTML and JavaScript is the answer. For the last couple of years, the news keeps talking about the digital economy and how everyone needs programmers. It seems like everyone wants to learn how to code. However, it is not that easy. Coding is a skill; and like any skill, it takes time to learn. Like any skill, the younger you start, the better you get.

The Information Age / Computer Networking by Jack Chmela aka Jack "Blacknet" Principal of Chmelaeon Inc., Entrepreneur, Author, Innovator Adapter & Presenter for ABC's Shark Tank. Jack's valuable insight along with research and writings spanning over two decades by industry experts chronicles the evolution of internet networking and where we are heading toward to give you a competitive advantage in the marketplace!

We are living in a new age. With developments emerging every day, Artificial Intelligence will soon surpass most human competencies and drastically transform technology's role in our day-to-day world. The solution for organizational leaders is not to become more like computers. In order for our organizations to survive as we stand at the threshold of a new era, we must tap into the qualities that make us uniquely human. Nick Chatrath interweaves an analysis of antiquated leadership modes with his newly developed strategies for more effective "threshold" leadership methods.

Technology insider Alice Marwick contends in this insightful book, “Web 2.0” only encouraged a preoccupation with status and attention. Her original research - which includes conversations. Marwick analyzes status-building techniques - such as self-branding, micro-celebrity, and life-streaming - to show that Web 2.0 did not provide a cultural revolution, but only furthered inequality and reinforced traditional social stratification, demarcated by race, class, and gender.

The world of golf is at a crossroads. As technological innovations displace traditional philosophies, the golfing community has splintered into two deeply combative factions: the old-school teachers and players who believe in feel, artistry, and imagination, and the technical-minded who want to remake the game around data. In Golf’s Holy War, “an obvious hole-in-one for golfers and their coaches” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), Brett Cyrgalis takes us inside the heated battle playing out from weekend hackers to PGA Tour pros.

From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg is a clear-eyed history of one of the most central and yet most taken for granted features of modern life: the Internet. Once a technological novelty and now the very plumbing of the Information Age, the Internet is something we have learned to take largely for granted. So, how exactly has our society become so dependent upon a utility it barely understands? And what does it say about us that this is so?

Nev Schulman is the host of the wildly popular TV series Catfish which investigates online relationships to determine whether they are based on truth or fiction (spoiler: it's almost always fiction).

From the acclaimed author of Birdmen comes a revelatory new history of the birth of the automobile - an illuminating and entertaining true tale of invention, competition, and the visionaries, hustlers, and swindlers who came together to transform the world. With a narrative as propulsive as its subject, Drive! plunges us headlong into a time unlike any in history, when manic innovation and consumerist zeal coalesced to forever change the way people got from one place to another.

Robert Hand was known in his early career as the first practicing astrologer to write astrology programs for microcomputers (in 1977) so that the benefits of computers would be available to astrologers. From this effort, he founded Astro-Graphics Services in 1979, which later became Astrolabe, Inc. He was a founding member of Project Hindsight, a group dedicated to retrieving and translating traditional astrology texts. He served as an editor, translator, and publisher of ancient astrological writings.

Skip the iPhone, the iPod, and the Macintosh. If you want to understand how Apple Inc. became an industry behemoth, look no further than the 1977 Apple II. The Apple II was a versatile piece of hardware, but its most compelling story isn't found in the feat of its engineering, the personalities of Apple's founders, or the way it set the stage for the company's multibillion-dollar future. Instead, historian Laine Nooney shows, what made the Apple II iconic was its software.

This audiobook narrated by Teri Schnaubelt explains how to put democracy at the heart of AI governance.

In the age of AI, knowledge is power. Arm yourself with a comprehensive understanding of the technology driving change, and the role we play as individuals and society in shaping its trajectory. Whether you are a technology enthusiast or a curious observer, this audiobook will expand your horizons and challenge your perspective on the potential and limitations of AI.

The late 19th century was a period of explosive technological creativity, but arguably the most important invention of all was Thomas Edison’s incandescent light bulb. Unveiled in his Menlo Park, New Jersey, laboratory in 1879, the light bulb overwhelmed the American public with the sense of the birth of a new age. More than any other invention, the electric light marked the arrival of modernity.