Libros de Divulgación Científica, página 59 de 181

A compelling biography of Mark Weiser a pioneering innovator whose legacy looms over the tech industry s quest to connect everything and who hoped for something better When developers and critics trace the roots of today s Internet of Things our smart gadgets and smart cities they may single out the same creative source Mark Weiser 1952 99 the first chief technology officer at Xerox PARC and the so called father of ubiquitous computing But Weiser who died young at age 46 in 1999 would be heartbroken if he had lived to see the ways we use technology today As John Tinnell shows in this thought provoking narrative Weiser was an outlier in Silicon Valley A computer scientist whose first love was philosophy he relished debates about the machine s ultimate purpose Good technology Weiser argued should not mine our experiences for saleable data or demand our attention rather it should quietly boost our intuition as we move through the world Informed by deep archival research and interviews with Weiser s family and colleagues The Philosopher of Palo Alto chronicles Weiser s struggle to initiate a new era of computing Working in the shadows of the dot com boom Weiser and his collaborators made Xerox PARC headquarters the site of a grand experiment Throug

With humor easy to understand language and fun illustrations marine scientist Ellen Prager and meteorologist Dave Jones use frequently asked and zany questions about the ocean and atmosphere to combat misinformation and make science engaging and understandable for all

Why do we feel excited afraid and frustrated by algorithms The Feel of Algorithms brings relatable first person accounts of what it means to experience algorithms emotionally alongside interdisciplinary social science research to reveal how political and economic processes are felt in the everyday People s algorithm stories might fail to separate fact and misconception and circulate wishful erroneous or fearful views of digital technologies Yet rather than treating algorithmic folklore as evidence of ignorance this novel book explains why personal anecdotes are an important source of algorithmic knowledge Minna Ruckenstein argues that we get to know algorithms by feeling their actions and telling stories about them The Feel of Algorithms shows how taking everyday algorithmic emotions seriously balances the current discussion which has a tendency to draw conclusions based on celebratory or oppositional responses to imagined future effects An everyday focus zooms into experiences of pleasure fear and irritation highlighting how political aims and ethical tensions play out in visions practices and emotional responses This book shows that feelings aid in recognizing troubling practices and also calls for alternatives that are currently ignored or suppre

Even in the third decade of the twenty first century it is still harder for women to make a career in science than men Two centuries ago however at the beginning of the nineteenth century when science as we know it was just getting started the situation was far worse Then the very notion of a female scientist would have been regarded as something of an oxymoron From bestselling and award winning science writers John and Mary Gribbin Against the Odds highlights the achievements of women who overcame hurdles and achieved scientific success although not always as much as they deserved in spite of male prejudice as society changed over about 150 years from the middle of the nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth century There is Eunice Newton Foote who discovered the carbon dioxide greenhouse effect Chien Shiung Wu who discovered the law which allows matter to exist in the Universe today and Barbara McClintock who discovered how genes turn on and off With a foreword from astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell this book is not only a cautionary tale about the stifling effects of prejudice against women in science but a celebration of those who achieved success against the odds and an inspiration for the next generation

Husserl s Missing Technologies looks at the early twentieth century classical phenomenology of Edmund Husserl both in the light of the philosophy of science of his time and retrospectively at his philosophy from a contemporary postphenomenology Of central interest are his infrequent comments upon technologies and especially scientific instruments such as the telescope and microscope Together with his analysis of Husserl Don Ihde ventures through the recent history of technologies of science reading and writing and science praxis calling for modifications to phenomenology by converging it with pragmatism This fruitful hybridization emphasizes human technology interrelationships the role of embodiment and bodily skills and the inherent multistability of technologies In a radical argument Ihde contends that philosophies in the same way that various technologies contain an ever shortening obsolescence ought to have contingent use lives

Like Louis Theroux channelling Margaret Atwood New Statesman A tour of the lurid fringes of the tech world The Times A moreish page turner of a book Herald Imagine if it was possible to have the perfect sexual relationship without compromise eat meat without killing animals have babies without the need to bear them and choose the time of our painless death Life would be better right All over the globe people are trying to make this a reality They want to use technology to solve the thorniest problems of humanity But what if these problems are the very things that make us human Join Jenny Kleeman on an entertaining thought provoking adventure to a place where sex robots and vegan meat are no longer science fiction right here right now

Modern information technology permeates and transforms our world far more intensely than most of us realize It highlights major development lines and explains concepts such as artificial intelligenc

Ever wonder why soap bubbles become invisible right before they pop Or why lenses are so blue they look purple How is it possible to image black holes at the heart of distant galaxies The answer to all these questions is Interference This book tells the story of the science of optical interferometry mankind s most sensitive form of measurement and of the scientists who tamed light to make outstanding discoveries from lasers and holograms to astronomy and quantum physics In the past several years interferometry has been used to discover exoplanets orbiting distant stars to take the first image of a black hole to detect the first gravitational waves and to create the first programmable quantum computer This list of achievements points to the fertile and active field of interferometry for which this book provides a convenient and up to date guide for a wide audience interested in the science of light

Science A Four Thousand Year History rewrites science s past Instead of focussing on difficult experiments and abstract theories Patricia Fara shows how science has always belonged to the practical world of war politics and business Rather than glorifying scientists as idealized heroes she tells true stories about real people men and some women who needed to earn their living who made mistakes and who trampled down their rivals in their quest for success Fara sweeps through the centuries from ancient Babylon right up to the latest hi tech experiments in genetics and particle physics illuminating the financial interests imperial ambitions and publishing enterprises that have made science the powerful global phenomenon that it is today She also ranges internationally illustrating the importance of scientific projects based around the world from China to the Islamic empire as well as the more familiar tale of science in Europe from Copernicus to Charles Darwin and beyond Above all this four thousand year history challenges scientific supremacy arguing controversially that science is successful not because it is always right but because people have said that it is right

How science has changed our perceptions of God from the age of Newton to the era of quantum mechanics

Powerful profound and completely engrossing a meditation on not only technology but also history culture ideas ethics psychology and above all what it means to be human Michael Bhaskar co author of The Coming Wave Wise Animals explores the history of our relationship with technology and our deep involvement with our creations from the first use of tools and the taming of fire via the invention of reading and printing to the development of the computer the creation of the internet and the emergence of AI Human children know no more of modern technology than their ancestors did of older technologies thousands of years ago and develop in relation to the technologies of their time We co evolve with technology as individuals as we have as a species over thousands of years Rather than see technology as a threat this deeply humanist contribution to the debate proposes that we are neither masters nor victims of our technologies They are part of who we are and our future and theirs is in our hands

We live in an incredible period in history The Computer Revolution may be even more life changing than the Industrial Revolution We can do things with computers that could never be done before and computers can do things for us that could never be done before But our love of computers should not cloud our thinking about their limitations We are told that computers are smarter than humans and that data mining can identify previously unknown truths or make discoveries that will revolutionize our lives Our lives may well be changed but not necessarily for the better Computers are very good at discovering patterns but are useless in judging whether the unearthed patterns are sensible because computers do not think the way humans think We fear that super intelligent machines will decide to protect themselves by enslaving or eliminating humans But the real danger is not that computers are smarter than us but that we think computers are smarter than us and so trust computers to make important decisions for us The AI Delusion explains why we should not be intimidated into thinking that computers are infallible that data mining is knowledge discovery and that black boxes should be trusted

A radical proposal for how a tiny organism can transform our understanding of human relations Serving as both a guide and companion publication to the conceptual art project of the same name The Lichen Museum explores how the physiological characteristics of lichens provide a valuable template for reimagining human relations in an age of ecological and social precarity Channeling between the personal the scientific the philosophical and the poetic A Laurie Palmer employs a cross disciplinary framework that artfully mirrors the collective relations of lichens imploring us to envision alternative ways of living based on interdependence rather than individualism and competition Lichens are composite organisms made up of a fungus and an alga or cyanobacteria thriving in a mutually beneficial relationship The Lichen Museum looks to these complex organisms remarkable for their symbiosis diversity longevity and adaptability as models for relations rooted in collaboration and nonhierarchical structures In their resistance to fast paced growth and commodification lichens also offer possibilities for humans to reconfigure their relationship to time and attention outside of the accelerated pace of capitalist accumulation Drawing together a diverse set of voices

Our systems are failing Old models for education healthcare and government food production energy supply are creaking under the weight of modern challenges As the world s population heads towards 10 billion it s clear we need new approaches Futurologist Mark Stevenson sets out to find them across four continents From Brazilian favelas to high tech Boston from rural India to a shed inventor in England s home counties We Do Things Differently travels the world to find the advance guard re imagining our future At each stop he meets innovators who have already succeeded in challenging the status quo pioneering new ways to make our world more sustainable equitable and humane Populated by extraordinary characters We Do Things Differently paints an enthralling picture of what can be done to address the world s most pressing dilemmas offering a much needed dose of down to earth optimism It is a window on and a roadmap to a different and better future

The forgotten garden that inspired Charles Darwin becomes the modern day setting for an exploration of memory family and the legacy of genius Darwin s childhood garden at The Mount in Shrewsbury was the site of some of the great scientist s earliest experiments It was where under the tutelage of his green fingered mother and sisters and the house s knowledgeable gardeners he first examined the reproductive life of flowers collected birds eggs and began to note down the ideas that would lead to his groundbreaking theory of evolution In The Ghost in the Garden Jude Piesse uncovers the lost histories that inspired Darwin s work and how his legacy and the legacies of those around him live on today

WINNER OF THE 800 CEO READ BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2015 In the vein of Susan Cain s QUIET and Malcolm Gladwell s DAVID AND GOLIATH HOW TO FLY A HORSE is a smart empowering book that dispels the myths around genius and creativity There is a myth about how something new comes to be that geniuses have dramatic moments of insight where great things and thoughts are born whole Symphonies are composed complete Science is accomplished with eureka shrieks Businesses are built by magic touch The myth is wrong Anyone can create Acclaimed technology pioneer Kevin Ashton takes us behind the scenes of creation to reveal the true process of discovery and how new comes to be From Archimedes to Apple from Kandinsky to the Coke can from the Wright brothers who set out to fly a horse to Woody Allen he exposes the seemingly unremarkable individuals gradual steps multiple failures and countless ordinary and often uncredited acts that led to our most astounding breakthroughs

In the midst of spiraling ecological devastation multispecies feminist theorist Donna J Haraway offers provocative new ways to reconfigure our relations to the earth and all its inhabitants She eschews referring to our current epoch as the Anthropocene preferring to conceptualize it as what she calls the Chthulucene as it more aptly and fully describes our epoch as one in which the human and nonhuman are inextricably linked in tentacular practices The Chthulucene Haraway explains requires sym poiesis or making with rather than auto poiesis or self making Learning to stay with the trouble of living and dying together on a damaged earth will prove more conducive to the kind of thinking that would provide the means to building more livable futures Theoretically and methodologically driven by the signifier SF string figures science fact science fiction speculative feminism speculative fabulation so far Staying with the Trouble further cements Haraway s reputation as one of the most daring and original thinkers of our time

Flash crashes Speed dating Instant messaging From the devices we carry to the lives we lead everything is getting faster faster But where did this great acceleration come from And where will it lead In this vitally important new book Robert Colvile explains how the cult of disruption in Silicon Valley the ceaseless advance of technology and our own fundamental appetite for novelty and convenience have combined to speed up every aspect of daily life Drawing on the latest research this book traces the path of this acceleration through our working and social lives the food we buy and the music to which we listen It explains how it s transforming the media politics and the financial markets and asks whether our bodies and the natural environment can cope As we race towards the future into a world packed with new technologies new ideas and new discoveries this scintillating and engrossing book is an invaluable must read guide to the wonders and dangers that await us