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Computer science

  • Auteur:
    Fabricant, Robert, Kuang, Cliff
    Sommaire:

    The first book to tell the story of the ways in which design is reshaping life in the twenty-first century User Friendly opens with two very different stories. In 1979, a series of failures leads to the catastrophic accident at Three Mile Island; one of the most critical of these failures is a design flaw-a key indicator in the plant's control room is hidden from the operator's sight line. In 2018, a giant, futuristic Apple campus is built on the back of sales of the iPhone, the most "user-friendly" device ever made. The two stories are part of one larger narrative-the story of the surprisingly recent innovation of putting users at the center of design. In User Friendly, Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant unpack the ways in which the world has been-and continues to be-remade according to the principles of a relatively obscure discipline: user experience design. Its spread is intertwined with the sweeping changes of the last century, from women's rights to the Great Depression and World War II and the rise of the digital era. Its ideals have shaped the world around us, from washing machines to self-driving cars to social media. Combining the expertise and insight of a leading journalist and a pioneering designer, User Friendly provides a definitive, thoughtful, and practical perspective on a topic that has rapidly gone from arcane to urgent to inescapable. In User Friendly, Kuang and Fabricant tell the whole story for the first time-and you'll never interact with technology the same way again.

  • Auteur:
    Rose, Ellen
    Sommaire:

    User Error explodes the myth of computer technology as juggernaut. Multimedia educator Ellen Rose shows that there is no bandwagon, no out-of-control dynamo, no titanic conspiracy to overwhelm us. Instead, there is our own desire to join the fraternity of users, a fraternity that confers legitimacy and power on those who enter the brave new world. Rose exposes how we surrender decision-making power in personal and workplace computing situations. As users we willingly grant authority to the creators of software, support materials, and the seductive infrastructure of technocracy. "Smart" users are rewarded; reluctant users are pathologized. User identity is deliberately constructed at the crossroads of industry, consumer demand, and complicity. User Error sounds a timely alarm, calling on all of us who use the new technologies to recognize how we are being co-opted. With awareness we can reassert our own responsibility and power in this increasingly important interaction. Savvy, accessible, and up-to-date, User Error offers insight, inspiration, and strategies of resistance to general readers, technology professionals, students, and scholars alike.

  • Auteur:
    Rathbone, Andy
    Sommaire:

    Whether you want to prepare your computer for Windows 7, avoid investing in a new one, or just "go green", this fully illustrated guide has what you need. You'll learn how to add printers and new keyboards, boost your PC's performance and increase memory, improve power consumption, rev up your multimedia capacity, and much more. Step-by-step instructions are accompanied by photos that show you exactly what you should see at every stage. * Learn to perform basic upgrades and prepare your PC for high-speed Internet connections, network connections, and added security, all with fully illustrated instructions * Find out how to expand memory, enhance speed, and update your computer's power supply * Prepare an old computer for Windows 7 and beef up your capacity for multimedia Upgrading & Fixing Computers Do-It-Yourself For Dummies is a show-and-tell course in making your PC happy, healthy, and green.

  • Auteur:
    Roeder, Mark
    Sommaire:

    "Compelling ... Technology is changing the landscape of society, and Roeder describes how humanity is changing along with it." -Daniel H. Wilson, author of Robopocalypse Does the geek personify a distinct new phase in human evolution, as the environment shifts to favor their traits' This fascinating book examines the behavioral and genetic traits commonly associated with those who in the past may have been labeled or looked down upon, but have bloomed in today's "digital greenhouse." As an example, think of the competition between Mark Zuckerberg versus the Winklevoss twins, made famous in the movie The Social Network. Mark Roeder suggests that the rise of the geek is not so much the product of Darwinian natural selection as of man-made-or unnatural-selection, which allows non-neurotypicals to thrive. He explains why geeks have become so phenomenally successful in such a short time, and why the process will further accelerate in the future, driven by breakthroughs in genetic engineering, nEuropharmacology, and artificial intelligence. Unnatural Selection offers a fascinating synthesis of the latest trends in these fields and predicts a twenty-first century "cognitive arms race"-in which new technology will enable everyone to become more intelligent and "geek-like." "A thoughtful, contemplative treatise told with wit and wisdom." -Publishers Weekly

  • Auteur:
    Shah, Satish
    Sommaire:

    In our increasingly mobile world, communication must be effective, global, and available through multiple technologies seamlessly. Unified Communications logically blends and combines previously separate services and features, making communication possible by any means, with anyone, using any of your devices. This complex topic is perfect for a book dedicated to making everything easier! Unified Communications For Dummies introduces you to the many advantages this technology offers your business and shows you how to develop a strategy for bringing it about. * Unified Communications is a new paradigm for working and communicating efficiently and collaboratively * This book explains the features available with Unified Communications and how they can create new capabilities to drive customer satisfaction * Shows how Unified Communications encompasses office and mobile phones, voicemail, instant messaging, fax, Internet phone calls, texting, and even Web conferencing * Provides a step-by-step approach for creating a Unified Communications strategy * Offers tips for improving the implementation process * Shares real-world examples of how Unified Communications is being used today Unified Communications For Dummies shows you how to meet business needs with this emerging, cutting-edge solution.

  • Auteur:
    Lacy, Kyle
    Sommaire:

    Get the latest tweets, tools, tips and techniques, and kick-start your Twitter marketing campaign! As the fastest-growing social networking service with more than 50 million tweets posted per day, Twitter poses a plethora of marketing possibilities. Boasting more than 50 percent new or updated content, this fun and friendly second edition reflects the latest features that Twitter has implemented to make the service more appealing to business users. Twitter Marketing For Dummies, 2nd Edition helps you build a following, promote your product and drive more traffic to your Web site. This book: *Details the changes to Twitter since the previous edition and explores the newest features and functionality that Twitter now offers to businesses looking to market their product on the fastest-growing social networking service *Shows you how to effectively increase your visibility and promote your message via Twitter *Looks at the new promoted Tweets and Twitter lists *Delves into the marketing possibilities that exist with the new feature of sharing tweets on other social networking sites So stop twiddling your thumbs and start tweeting today with the Twitter marketing advice shared within the pages of Twitter Marketing For Dummies, 2nd Edition.

  • Auteur:
    Fitton, Laura
    Sommaire:

    Twitter, the simple-to-use microblogging service, offers immense benefits for businesses and organizations. Fire departments, political candidates, and CEOs have used Twitter to share up-to-the-minute information. Laura Fitton, maybe better known by her Twitter handle - @Pistachio, has more than 10,000 followers on Twitter, and gives presentations on how to use Twitter to build business and personal opportunity. She's joined by Michael Gruen and Leslie Poston to share Twitter expertise in this easy-to-follow guide. You'll discover how to get set up on Twitter, build a follower list, and find a voice for your tweets. Then you'll learn to use third party tools to link Twitter to other sites and incorporate it into business communication models. This book covers * The basics of signing up and creating tweets * Following other users and adding followers to your own tweets * Mastering the "Twecosystem"—the tools that tie Twitter to many other Web applications, including mobile devices * Strategies for enhancing business communication, marketing, and networking opportunities with Twitter Twitter For Dummies gets you up and running on this hot communications tool the fun and easy way.

  • Auteur:
    Jenkins, Sue
    Sommaire:

    Tumblr may be a microblogging platform, but there's nothing micro about it. There's no limit to what you can post in your blog—from text, photos, and links to audio, video, slideshows, and more. Now you can join the over 28 million Tumblelogs on Tumblr with this handy, portable guide. In the popular, For Dummies, easy-access style, this practical book shows you exactly what to do to get the most out of Tumblr. Set up your account, choose a theme, post from your computer or phone, see how to reblog content, and before you know it, you're off and Tumbling. * Guides you in how to join and get the most out of Tumblr * Shows you how to set up an account, choose a theme, customize your Tumblelog, and use the dashboard * Explains how to follow other Tumblr users and reblog their content, and post from your browser, phone, or email * Offers tips, trick, and techniques to make everything easy All the detail you need to get up and running on this fun microblogging platform is here, in Tumblr For Dummies Portable Edition.

  • Auteur:
    Blum, Andrew
    Sommaire:

    In Tubes, journalist Andrew Blum goes inside the Internet's physical infrastructure and flips on the lights, revealing an utterly fresh look at the online world we think we know. It is a shockingly tactile realm of unmarked compounds, populated by a special caste of engineer who pieces together our networks by hand; where glass fibres pulse with light and where creaky telegraph buildings, tortuously rewired, become communication hubs once again. From the room in Los Angeles where the Internet first flickered to life to the busy hub in downtown Toronto that links Canada to the world; from the coast of Portugal, where a 10,000 mile undersea cable just two thumbs wide connects Europe and Africa to the wilds of the Pacific Northwest, where Google, Microsoft and Facebook have built monumental data centres, Blum chronicles the dramatic story of the Internet's development, explains how it all works, and takes the first-ever in-depth look inside its hidden world.

  • Auteur:
    Gookin, Dan
    Sommaire:

    Written by veteran For Dummies author Dan Gookin, this straightforward guide shows you how to diagnose and solve the most common hardware and software problems your PC may encounter. In addition, he presents advice for preventing PC problems in the first place and clearly explains how to create a safe and secure PC environment.     * Walks you through ways to diagnose the most common PC hardware, software, and operating system problems * Offers clear and easy-to-understand solutions for confidently handling these problems * Shares valuable advice about maintaining your system to maximize its lifespan * Reviews an array of useful tools * Covers Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Internet Explorer 8 Troubleshooting & Maintaining Your PC All-in-One For Dummies, 2nd Edition helps you to confidently handle whatever PC problems you may encounter.

  • Auteur:
    Gookin, Dan
    Sommaire:

    Maintaining a PC is important, and troubleshooting a PC can be a challenge. Dan Gookin is great at explaining how to handle common PC problems, and he’s provided a complete, plain-English manual in Troubleshooting & Maintaining Your PC All-in-One For Dummies. Liberally laced with Dan’s famous humor and clear instructions, Troubleshooting & Maintaining Your PC All-in-One For Dummies is divided into six minibooks covering hardware, software, laptops, Internet, networking, and maintenance. Each one gives you some background on what causes common problems, to help you understand what’s wrong as well as how to fix it. You’ll learn to: * Troubleshoot both Windows XP and Vista * Solve e-mail and Web woes, makes friends with ActiveX, and protect your system from evil software and viruses * Resolve router problems, reset the modem, delve into IP addresses, and find the elusive wireless network * Investigate startup issues, battery quirks, and power problems * Travel safely and efficiently with your laptop * Perform regular maintenance and keep good backups * Solve problems with disks and printers * Find missing files, successfully restore files if something major goes wrong, and pep up your PC The bonus DVD walks you through some of the complex steps discussed in the book and demonstrates tasks like removing a hard drive. There’s a great collection of free and demo software, too. Troubleshooting & Maintaining Your PC All-in-One For Dummies is tech support in a book! Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

  • Auteur:
    Smith, Brad
    Sommaire:

    With a foreword by Bill Gates From Microsoft's President and one of the tech industry's wisest thinkers, a frank and thoughtful reckoning with how to balance enormous promise and existential risk as the digitization of everything accelerates. Microsoft President Brad Smith operates by a simple core belief: when your technology changes the world, you bear a responsibility to help address the world you have helped create. This might seem uncontroversial, but it flies in the face of a tech sector long obsessed with rapid growth and sometimes on disruption as an end in itself. Now, though, we have reached an inflection point: Silicon Valley has moved fast and it has broken things. A new understanding has emerged that companies that create technology must accept greater responsibility for the future. And governments will need to regulate technology by moving faster and catching up with the pace of innovation that is impacting our communities and changing the world. In Tools and Weapons, Brad Smith takes us into the cockpit of one of the world's largest and most powerful tech companies as it finds itself in the middle of some of the thorniest emerging issues of our time. These are challenges that come with no preexisting playbook, including privacy, cybercrime and cyberwar, social media, the moral conundrums of AI, big tech's relationship to inequality and the challenges for democracy, far and near. While in no way a self-glorifying "Microsoft memoir," the book opens up the curtain remarkably wide onto some of the company's most crucial recent decision points, as it strives to protect the hopes technology offers against the very real threats it also presents. Every tool can be a weapon in the wrong person's hands, and companies are being challenged in entirely new ways to embrace the totality of their responsibilities. We have moved from a world in which Silicon Valley could take no prisoners to one in which tech companies and governments must work together to address the challenges and adapt to the changes technology has unleashed. There are huge ramifications to be thought through, and Brad Smith provides a marvelous and urgently necessary contribution to that effort.

  • Auteur:
    Morozov, Evgeny
    Sommaire:

    In the very near future, “smart” technologies and “big data” will allow us to make large-scale and sophisticated interventions in politics, culture, and everyday life. Technology will allow us to solve problems in highly original ways and create new incentives to get more people to do the right thing. But how will such “solutionism” affect our society, once deeply political, moral, and irresolvable dilemmas are recast as uncontroversial and easily manageable matters of technological efficiency? What if some such problems are simply vices in disguise? What if some friction in communication is productive and some hypocrisy in politics necessary? The temptation of the digital age is to fix everything—from crime to corruption to pollution to obesity—by digitally quantifying, tracking, or gamifying behavior. But when we change the motivations for our moral, ethical, and civic behavior we may also change the very nature of that behavior. Technology, Evgeny Morozov proposes, can be a force for improvement—but only if we keep solutionism in check and learn to appreciate the imperfections of liberal democracy. Some of those imperfections are not accidental but by design.

    Arguing that we badly need a new, post-Internet way to debate the moral consequences of digital technologies, To Save Everything, Click Here warns against a world of seamless efficiency, where everyone is forced to wear Silicon Valley's digital straitjacket.

  • Auteur:
    Perlroth, Nicole
    Sommaire:

    "Part John le Carré and more parts Michael Crichton . . . spellbinding." - The New Yorker From The New York Times cybersecurity reporter Nicole Perlroth, the untold story of the cyberweapons market—the most secretive, invisible, government-backed market on earth—and a terrifying first look at a new kind of global warfare. Zero day: a software bug that allows a hacker to break into your devices and move around undetected. One of the most coveted tools in a spy's arsenal, a zero day has the power to silently spy on your iPhone, dismantle the safety controls at a chemical plant, alter an election, and shut down the electric grid (just ask Ukraine). For decades, under cover of classification levels and non-disclosure agreements, the United States government became the world's dominant hoarder of zero days. U.S. government agents paid top dollar—first thousands, and later millions of dollars— to hackers willing to sell their lock-picking code and their silence. Then the United States lost control of its hoard and the market. Now those zero days are in the hands of hostile nations and mercenaries who do not care if your vote goes missing, your clean water is contaminated, or our nuclear plants melt down. Filled with spies, hackers, arms dealers, and a few unsung heroes, written like a thriller and a reference, This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends is an astonishing feat of journalism. Based on years of reporting and hundreds of interviews, The New York Times reporter Nicole Perlroth lifts the curtain on a market in shadow, revealing the urgent threat faced by us all if we cannot bring the global cyber arms race to heel.

  • Auteur:
    Helberg, Jacob
    Sommaire:

    From the former news policy lead at Google, an urgent and groundbreaking account of the high-stakes global cyberwar brewing between Western democracies and the autocracies of China and Russia that could potentially crush democracy. From 2016 to 2020, Jacob Helberg led Google's global internal product policy efforts to combat disinformation and foreign interference. During this time, he found himself in the midst of what can only be described as a quickly escalating two-front technology cold war between democracy and autocracy. On the front-end, we're fighting to control the software-applications, news information, social media platforms, and more-of what we see on the screens of our computers, tablets, and phones, a clash which started out primarily with Russia but now increasingly includes China and Iran. Even more ominously, we're also engaged in a hidden back-end battle-largely with China-to control the Internet's hardware, which includes devices like cellular phones, satellites, fiber-optic cables, and 5G networks. This tech-fueled war will shape the world's balance of power for the coming century as autocracies exploit twenty-first-century methods to re-divide the world into twentieth century-style spheres of influence. Helberg cautions that the spoils of this fight are power over every meaningful aspect of our lives, including our economy, our infrastructure, our national security, and ultimately, our national sovereignty. Without a firm partnership with the government, Silicon Valley is unable to protect democracy from the autocrats looking to sabotage it from Beijing to Moscow and Tehran. The stakes of the ongoing cyberwar are no less than our nation's capacity to chart its own future, the freedom of our democratic allies, and even the ability of each of us to control our own fates, Helberg says. And time is quickly running out.

  • Auteur:
    Casey, Michael J., Luckett, Oliver
    Sommaire:

    Luckett and Casey deliver a revolutionary theory of social networks, showing how they mimic biological life. By examining cells, viruses, and other microbiological functions, we can master social media in both business and in life.

  • Auteur:
    Virk, Rizwan
    Sommaire:

    The Simulation Hypothesis, by best-selling author, renowned MIT computer scientist and Silicon Valley video game designer Rizwan Virk, is the first serious book to explain one of the most daring and consequential theories of our time. Riz is the Executive Director of Play Labs @ MIT, a video game startup incubator at the MIT Game Lab. Drawing from research and concepts from computer science, artificial intelligence, video games, quantum physics, and referencing both speculative fiction and ancient eastern spiritual texts, Virk shows how all of these traditions come together to point to the idea that we may be inside a simulated reality like the Matrix. The Simulation Hypothesis is the idea that our physical reality, far from being a solid physical universe, is part of an increasingly sophisticated video game-like simulation, where we all have multiple lives, consisting of pixels with its own internal clock run by some giant Artificial Intelligence. Simulation theory explains some of the biggest mysteries of quantum and relativistic physics, such as quantum indeterminacy, parallel universes, and the integral nature of the speed of light. Recently, the idea that we may be living in a giant video game has received a lot of attention:"The chances that we not in a simualtion is one in billions."--Elon Musk"I find it hard to argue we are not in a simulation." -Neil deGrasse Tyson"We are living in computer generated reality." -Philip K. DickWhether you are a computer scientist, a fan of science fiction like the Matrix movies, a video game enthusiast, or a spiritual seeker, The Simulation Hypothesis touches on all these areas, and you will never look at the world the same way again!

  • Auteur:
    O'Hagan, Andrew
    Sommaire:

    In The Secret Life, the essayist and novelist Andrew O'Hagan explores how we no longer question the reality of online experiences but the reality of selfhood in the digital age.

  • Auteur:
    Franklin, Ursula M.
    Sommaire:

    In this expanded edition of her bestselling 1989 CBC Massey Lectures, renowned scientist and humanitarian Ursula M. Franklin examines the impact of technology upon our lives and addresses the extraordinary changes since The Real World of Technology was first published. In four new chapters, Franklin tackles contentious issues, such as the dilution of privacy and intellectual property rights, the impact of the current technology on government and governance, the shift from consumer capitalism to investment capitalism, and the influence of the Internet upon the craft of writing.

  • Auteur:
    Hillis, W. Daniel
    Sommaire:

    Most people are baffled by how computers work and assume that they will never understand them. What they don't realize-and what Daniel Hillis's short book brilliantly demonstrates-is that computers' seemingly complex operations can be broken down into a few simple parts that perform the same simple procedures over and over again. Computer wizard Hillis offers an easy-to-follow explanation of how data is processed that makes the operations of a computer seem as straightforward as those of a bicycle.Avoiding technobabble or discussions of advanced hardware, the lucid explanations and colorful anecdotes in The Pattern on the Stonego straight to the heart of what computers really do. Hillis proceeds from an outline of basic logic to clear descriptions of programming languages, algorithms, and memory. He then takes readers in simple steps up to the most exciting developments in computing today-quantum computing, parallel computing, neural networks, and self-organizing systems.Written clearly and succinctly by one of the world's leading computer scientists, The Pattern on the Stone is an indispensable guide to understanding the workings of that most ubiquitous and important of machines: the computer.

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