Computer Engineering

In 1954, the US Air Force launched an ambitious program known as WS-117L to develop the world's first reconnaissance satellite. The goal was to take photographic images from space and relay them back to Earth via radio. Because of technical issues and bureaucratic resistance, however, WS-117L was seriously behind schedule by the time Sputnik orbited Earth in 1957 and was eventually cancelled. Eyeing the Red Storm examines the birth of space-based reconnaissance from the perspective of WS-117L.

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 artificial intelligence 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 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.

Listen to Quality Assurance to discover everything you need to know about testing and software quality, step by step to increase your software skill set. Learn how to dominate computer systems. All your basic knowledge in one purchase!

In Overcomplicated, complexity scientist Samuel Arbesman offers a fresh, insightful field guide to living with complex technologies that defy human comprehension. As technology grows more complex, Arbesman argues, its behavior mimics the vagaries of the natural world more than it conforms to a mathematical model. If we are to survive and thrive in this new age, we must abandon our need for governing principles and rules and accept the chaos.

Scrum is a simple framework that allows us to complete projects, continuously improve and get an early return on investment. Whether you are a scrum master, product owner, team member, business stakeholder or simply someone who wants to understand what makes scrum tick, this book is for you.

This book is written for those who have heard about Excel and how useful it is for years, if not decades, and are finally ready to take the plunge and learn everything there is to know about Excel basics. It describes everything you need to know when it comes to understanding what Excel is for and when to use it for the best results.

In the future, historians may look back on human progress and draw a sharp line designating "before scrum" and "after scrum". Scrum is that groundbreaking. It already drives most of the world's top technology companies. And now it's starting to spread to every domain where people wrestle with complex projects.

What will our world be like in the year 2010? Where will we work? How will we travel? What kind of advances can we expect in medicine and technology? Probable Tomorrows offers a look into the near-future advances, inventions, products, services, and everyday conveniences that will change how people live and work.

Combining the deft social analysis of Where Good Ideas Come From with the optimistic arguments of Everything Bad Is Good for You, New York Times best-selling author Steven Johnson's Future Perfect makes the case that a new model of political change is on the rise, transforming everything from local governments to classrooms, from protest movements to health care. Johnson paints a compelling portrait of this new political worldview.

If you want to improve your ability to deliver a scrum project, then this audiobook is for you. The book does not give you magic-wand techniques but instead focuses your attention on where you should go to understand the fundamentals of scrum.

The flight of Apollo 11 was a triumph of human endeavor, persistence, and technology, one of the greatest achievements in human history. This book begins with the mission that sent Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin to the moon, then follows American spaceflight through the harrowing rescue of Apollo 13 before moving on to the successful joint Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975.

It was early February 1912, and Franz Reichelt, a Paris tailor, and Rodman Law, a self-described “professional jackass” from New York, were poised, respectively, on the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty, ready to deploy an experimental parachute. In bat wings and bundled linen, they were almost certain their contraptions would work. Here is the tale of their inspirations and their pluck - and what happened next.

Crystal Fire is a tale of the human factors in technology; the pride and jealousies coupled with scientific and economic aspiration that led to the creation of modern microelectronics and ignited the greatest technological explosion in history.

As one of our leading science writers, James Gleick has always been ahead of the curve. He chronicled the genius of the great physicist Richard Feynman and explained chaos theory in a way all of us could understand. Now, in a collection of previously published pieces, he muses on the Internet revolution that has taken place all around us.

TurboTime discusses simple, inexpensive ways to maximize the technology you probably already own. It's written in plain English, not techno-babble, so even if you're technologically inexperienced, you'll walk away with specific ideas you can apply today.

Software developers are in high demand and can earn a high income. Believe it or not, these jobs also don’t require a college degree. Many people are able to become self-taught software engineers and developers every day. With this short book, you can learn how to take the first steps. It will teach you strategies for how to choose a language to learn and how and where to learn a programming language.

Humans have landed men on the moon, programmed cars to drive themselves, and put the knowledge of our entire civilization in your back pocket. But no one - from MIT nerds to Army Corps engineers - has ever built a robot that can lay bricks as well as a mason. Unlike the controlled conditions of a factory line, where robots are now ubiquitous, no two construction sites are alike, and a day’s work involves countless variables - bricks that range in size and quality, temperamental mortar mixes, uneven terrain, fickle weather, and moody foremen.

Integrating and managing the services of multiple third-party IT service providers is becoming increasingly popular, but there is no formal best-practice guidance for service integration and management (SIAM). This book provides clear guidance on the SIAM process, answering questions on what service integration is, when SIAM is applicable, and what approach should be taken when sourcing ITSM services in a multi-sourced environment.

Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that has many applications, such as finance, security, banking, insurance, transportation companies, and much more. Blockchain can become a core fundamental component to all industries in the near future, similar to how the Internet evolved. This book is about the basics of blockchain technology and its applications, especially in cryptocurrency, and how it will eventually make a difference in your everyday life. 

If you've ever read a book on an e-reader, unleashed your inner rock star playing Guitar Hero, built a robot with LEGO Mindstorms, or ridden in a vehicle with child-safe air bags, then you've experienced first hand just a few of the astounding innovations that have come out of the Media Lab over the past 25 years. But that’s old hat for today’s researchers, who are creating technologies that will have a much deeper impact on the quality of people’s lives over the next quarter century.