Computers & Technology (50)

The life and times of one of our foremost intellects of the twentieth century: the architect of the Information Age, whose insights stand behind every computer built, email sent, video streamed, and webpage loaded. For the first time, A Mind at Play reveals the full story of this singular innovator and creative genius.

From Ben Mezrich, the New York Times bestselling author of The Accidental Billionaires and Bringing Down the House, comes Bitcoin Billionaires--the fascinating story of brothers Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss's big bet on crypto-currency and its dazzling pay-off.Ben Mezrich's 2009 bestseller The Accidental Billionaires is the definitive account of Facebook's founding and the basis for the Academy Award–winning film The Social Network. Two of the story's iconic characters are Harvard students Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss: identical twins, Olympic rowers, and foils to Mark Zuckerberg. Bitcoin Billionaires is the story of the brothers’ redemption and revenge in the wake of their epic legal battle with Facebook.Planning to start careers as venture capitalists, the brothers quickly discover that no one will take their money after their fight with Zuckerberg. While nursing their wounds in Ibiza, they accidentally run into an eccentric character who tells them about a brand-new idea: cryptocurrency. Immersing themselves in what is then an obscure and sometimes sinister world, they begin to realize “crypto” is, in their own words, "either the next big thing or total bulls--t." There’s nothing left to do but make a bet.From the Silk Road to the halls of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Bitcoin Billionaires will take us on a wild and surprising ride while illuminating a tantalizing economic future. On November 26, 2017, the Winklevoss brothers became the first bitcoin billionaires. Here’s the story of how they got there—as only Ben Mezrich could tell it.

Inspired by the groundbreaking A History of the World in 100 Objects, this book draws on the unique collections of The Strong museum in Rochester, New York, to chronicle the evolution of video games, from Pong to first-person shooters, told through the stories of dozens of objects essential to the field’s creation and development.Drawing on the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s unmatched collection of video game artifacts, this fascinating history offers an expansive look at the development of one of the most popular and influential activities of the modern world: video gaming.Sixty-four unique objects tell the story of the video game from inception to today. Pithy, in-depth essays and photographs examine each object’s significance to video game play - what it has contributed to the history of gaming - as well as the greater culture.

From medieval robots and Boolean algebra to facial recognition, artificial neural networks, and adversarial patches, this fascinating history takes readers on a vast tour through the world of artificial intelligence. Award-winning author Clifford A. Pickover (The Math Book, The Physics Book, Death & the Afterlife) explores the historic and current applications of AI in such diverse fields as computing, medicine, popular culture, mythology, and philosophy, and considers the enduring threat to humanity should AI grow out of control. Across 100 illustrated entries, Pickover provides an entertaining and informative look into when artificial intelligence began, how it developed, where it's going, and what it means for the future of human-machine interaction.

An illustrated guide to everything you need to know about Raspberry Pi.The Raspberry Pi is the most versatile, affordable, and accessible computer ever made - and you don't need any coding skills to use it. Creative Projects with Raspberry Pi shows dozens of the most remarkable and ingenious ways to use your Raspberry Pi and will appeal to Pi fans of all ages.• Features 35 inspiring inventions, including instructions for 10 buildable projects• Accompanied by a dedicated website containing all the code you need• Expert tips and secrets from Raspberry Pi pros around the world

Have you ever wanted to create your own legendary medieval kingdom to rule over? Well, now you can, with Minecraft Exploded Builds: Medieval Fortress.Learn how to design, build, and customize every part of your castle and the surrounding area, from sturdy walls and deadly traps to dank, dark dungeons and sprawling villages. Each build has an exploded view to show you exactly which blocks to use, plus extra ideas to make every part of your kingdom unique.Packed with interesting facts about medieval life, full-color illustrations, and a foldout depicting the epic scale of the kingdom, this official Mojang book has dozens of building ideas to ignite the imaginations of Minecrafters of all ages.

From NPR comes the definitive guide to podcasting--featuring step-by-step advice on how to find a unique topic, tell the best stories, and engage the most listeners, as well as the secrets that will take your pod to the next level.Podcasts are everywhere. Whoever you are, whatever you love, there's a podcast for you: political junkie, sports fan, foodie, pop culture lover, or science nerd. In a booming audio storytelling landscape, "You should start a podcast" has become the new "You should start a blog." But any podcast enthusiast knows that, in such a vast and growing marketplace, quality varies hugely. The barrier to entry into podcast production--a mic and a laptop--is low, but the learning curve is steep. That's where NPR comes in.In NPR's Podcast Start Up Guide, NPR, the #1 podcast publisher in the U.S., draws on its extensive educational materials, unparalleled experience, and army of podcasting talent--from recognizable hosts such as Gene Demby (Code Switch), Linda Holmes (Pop Culture Happy Hour), and Yowei Shaw (Invisibilia), to indispensable behind-the-scenes players such as producers, engineers, and editors--to guide aspiring podcasters through the conception, creation, and launch of a podcast.Part master class, part informational interview with the best in the business, this evergreen volume is a must-read for anyone who wants to make their dream of starting a podcast a reality.

Like Sun Tzu's Art of War for Modern Business, this book uses ancient ninja scrolls as the foundation for teaching readers about cyber-warfare, espionage and security.Cyberjutsu is a practical cybersecurity field guide based on the techniques, tactics, and procedures of the ancient ninja. Cyber warfare specialist Ben McCarty’s analysis of declassified Japanese scrolls will show how you can apply ninja methods to combat today’s security challenges like information warfare, deceptive infiltration, espionage, and zero-day attacks.Learn how to use key ninja techniques to find gaps in a target’s defense, strike where the enemy is negligent, master the art of invisibility, and more. McCarty outlines specific, in-depth security mitigations such as fending off social engineering attacks by being present with “the correct mind,” mapping your network like an adversary to prevent breaches, and leveraging ninja-like traps to protect your systems.You’ll also learn how to:• Use threat modeling to reveal network vulnerabilities• Identify insider threats in your organization• Deploy countermeasures like network sensors, time-based controls, air gaps, and authentication protocols• Guard against malware command and-control servers• Detect attackers, prevent supply-chain attacks, and counter zero-day exploitsCyberjutsu is the playbook that every modern cybersecurity professional needs to channel their inner ninja. Turn to the old ways to combat the latest cyber threats and stay one step ahead of your adversaries.

An accessible explanation of the technologies that enable such popular voice-interactive applications as Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant.

This book guides students through an exploration of the idea that thinking might be understood as a form of computation. Students make the connection between thinking and computing by learning to write computer programs for a variety of tasks that require thought, including solving puzzles, understanding natural language, recognizing objects in visual scenes, planning courses of action, and playing strategic games. The material is presented with minimal technicalities and is accessible to undergraduate students with no specialized knowledge or technical background beyond high school mathematics. Students use Prolog (without having to learn algorithms: “Prolog without tears!”), learning to express what they need as a Prolog program and letting Prolog search for answers.After an introduction to the basic concepts, Thinking as Computation offers three chapters on Prolog, covering back-chaining, programs and queries, and how to write the sorts of Prolog programs used in the book. The book follows this with case studies of tasks that appear to require thought, then looks beyond Prolog to consider learning, explaining, and propositional reasoning. Most of the chapters conclude with short bibliographic notes and exercises. The book is based on a popular course at the University of Toronto and can be used in a variety of classroom contexts, by students ranging from first-year liberal arts undergraduates to more technically advanced computer science students.

An insider's history of the website at the end of the world, which burst into politics and memed Donald Trump into the White House.The internet has transformed the ways we think and act, and by consequence, our politics. The most impactful recent political movements on the far left and right started with massive online collectives of teenagers. Strangely, both movements began on the same website: an anime imageboard called 4chan.org. It Came from Something Awful is the fascinating and bizarre story of 4chan and its profound effect on youth counterculture.Dale Beran has observed the website's shifting activities and interests since the beginning. 4chan is a microcosm of the internet itself - simultaneously at the vanguard of contemporary culture, politics, comedy, and language, and a new low for all of the above. It was the original meme machine, mostly frequented by socially awkward and disenfranchised young men in search of a place to be alone together.During the recession of the late 2000s, the memes became political. 4chan was the online hub of a leftist hacker collective known as Anonymous and a prominent supporter of the Occupy Wall Street movement. But within a few short years, the site's ideology spun on its axis; it became the birthplace and breeding ground of the alt-right. In It Came from Something Awful, Beran uses his insider's knowledge and natural storytelling ability to chronicle 4chan's strange journey from creating rage-comics to inciting riots to - according to some - memeing Donald Trump into the White House.

Cloak-and-dagger, high tech, and big business converge in this revelatory, page-turning account of a new kind of conflict, less visible but more invasive than any wars America has fought before.The United States military views cyberspace as the fifth domain of warfare (alongside land, air, sea, and space), and the Pentagon, the National Security Agency, and the CIAfield teams of hackers who launch cyber strikes against enemy targets and amass staggering quantities of personal information on all of us. These same virtual warriors, along with a growing band of private-sector counterparts, are charged with defending us against the vast array of criminals, terrorists, and foreign governments who attack us with ever-increasing frequency and effectiveness.Shane Harris infiltrates the frontlines of this fifth domain, explaining how and why government agencies are joining with tech giants like Google and Facebook to collect vast amounts of information. The military has also formed a new alliance with tech and finance companies to patrol cyberspace, and Harris offers a more penetrating and unnerving view of this partnership than we have ever seen before. Finally, he details the welter of opportunities and threats that the mushrooming military-Internet complex poses for our personal freedoms, our economic security, and the future of our nation.

An accessible synthesis of ethical issues raised by artificial intelligence that moves beyond hype and nightmare scenarios to address concrete questions. Artificial intelligence powers Google's search engine, enables Facebook to target advertising, and allows Alexa and Siri to do their jobs. AI is also behind self-driving cars, predictive policing, and autonomous weapons that can kill without human intervention. These and other AI applications raise complex ethical issues that are the subject of ongoing debate. This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series offers an accessible synthesis of these issues. Written by a philosopher of technology, AI Ethics goes beyond the usual hype and nightmare scenarios to address concrete questions. Mark Coeckelbergh describes influential AI narratives, ranging from Frankenstein's monster to transhumanism and the technological singularity. He surveys relevant philosophical discussions: questions about the fundamental differences between humans and machines and debates over the moral status of AI. He explains the technology of AI, describing different approaches and focusing on machine learning and data science. He offers an overview of important ethical issues, including privacy concerns, responsibility and the delegation of decision making, transparency, and bias as it arises at all stages of data science processes. He also considers the future of work in an AI economy. Finally, he analyzes a range of policy proposals and discusses challenges for policymakers. He argues for ethical practices that embed values in design, translate democratic values into practices and include a vision of the good life and the good society.

“A deft, informative, and often screamingly funny primer on the ways that machine learning can (and often does) go wrong.” —Margaret Harris, Physics World “You look like a thing and I love you” is one of the best pickup lines ever…according to an artificial intelligence trained by the scientist Janelle Shane, creator of the popular blog AI Weirdness. Shane creates silly AIs that learn how to name colors of paint, create the best recipes, and even flirt (badly) with humans—all to understand the technology that governs so much of our human lives. We rely on AI every day, trusting it for matters both big and small, from unlocking our phones to hospital care. But how smart is AI really…? Shane delivers the answer to every AI question you’ve ever asked, and some you definitely haven’t—such as: How can a computer design the perfect sandwich? What does robot-generated Harry Potter fan fiction sound like? And is the world’s best Halloween costume really “vampire hog bride”?In this smart, often hilarious introduction to the most interesting science of our time, Shane shows how these machines learn, fail, and adapt—and how they reflect both the best and worst of humanity."I can't think of a better way to learn about artificial intelligence, and I've never had so much fun along the way." —Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Originals

Be online without leaving a trace. Your every step online is being tracked and stored, and your identity literally stolen. Big companies and big governments want to know and exploit what you do, and privacy is a luxury few can afford or understand.In this explosive yet practical book, Kevin Mitnick uses true-life stories to show exactly what is happening without your knowledge, teaching you "the art of invisibility" -- online and real-world tactics to protect you and your family, using easy step-by-step instructions.Reading this book, you will learn everything from password protection and smart Wi-Fi usage to advanced techniques designed to maximize your anonymity. Kevin Mitnick knows exactly how vulnerabilities can be exploited and just what to do to prevent that from happening.The world's most famous -- and formerly the US government's most wanted -- computer hacker, he has hacked into some of the country's most powerful and seemingly impenetrable agencies and companies, and at one point was on a three-year run from the FBI. Now Mitnick is reformed and widely regarded as the expert on the subject of computer security. Invisibility isn't just for superheroes; privacy is a power you deserve and need in the age of Big Brother and Big Data.