Computers Audiobooks | Science & Technology

Everything You Need to Know about Social Media: Without Having to Call A Kid

MSNBC anchor and media maven Greta Van Susteren presents the most practical, thorough, and accessible guide around to living well on social media. From answering basic questions like "What's the best site for you?" to "How to Tweet" and "What does it mean to 'Tag' someone?" to addressing important moral and behavioral issues like how to protect your privacy, how to avoid being roasted online, and whether it's okay to get your news from Facebook, this is the essential handbook for anyone who wants to stay up to date with today's changing technology.

Greta Van Susteren (Author), Pam Ward (Narrator)

Audiobook

Machine Translation

The dream of a universal translation device goes back many decades, long before Douglas Adams's fictional Babel fish provided this service in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Since the advent of computers, research has focused on the design of digital machine translation tools-computer programs capable of automatically translating a text from a source language to a target language. This has become one of the most fundamental tasks of artificial intelligence. This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series offers a concise, nontechnical overview of the development of machine translation, including the different approaches, evaluation issues, and market potential. The main approaches are presented from a largely historical perspective and in an intuitive manner, allowing the reader to understand the main principles without knowing the mathematical details.

Thierry Poibeau (Author), James Anderson Foster (Narrator)

Audiobook

Information and Society

Using information in its everyday, nonspecialized sense, Michael Buckland explores the influence of information on what we know, the role of communication and recorded information in our daily lives, and the difficulty (or ease) of finding information. He shows that all this involves human perception, social behavior, changing technologies, and issues of trust. Buckland argues that every society is an "information society"; a "non-information society" would be a contradiction in terms. But the shift from oral and gestural communication to documents, and the wider use of documents facilitated by new technologies, have made our society particularly information intensive. Buckland describes the rising flood of data, documents, and records, outlines the dramatic long-term growth of documents, and traces the rise of techniques to cope with them. He examines the physical manifestation of information as documents, the emergence of data sets, and how documents and data are discovered and used. He explores what individuals and societies do with information; offers a basic summary of how collected documents are arranged and described; considers the nature of naming; explains the uses of metadata; and evaluates selection methods, considering relevance, recall, and precision.

Michael Buckland (Author), Steven Jay Cohen (Narrator)

Audiobook

Big Data, Little Data, No Data: Scholarship in the Networked World

"Big Data" is on the covers of Science, Nature, the Economist, and Wired magazines, on the front pages of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. But despite the media hyperbole, as Christine Borgman points out in this examination of data and scholarly research, having the right data is usually better than having more data; little data can be just as valuable as big data. In many cases, there are no data-because relevant data don't exist, cannot be found, or are not available. Moreover, data sharing is difficult, incentives to do so are minimal, and data practices vary widely across disciplines. Borgman, an often-cited authority on scholarly communication, argues that data have no value or meaning in isolation; they exist within a knowledge infrastructure-an ecology of people, practices, technologies, institutions, material objects, and relationships. After laying out the premises of her investigation-six "provocations" meant to inspire discussion about the uses of data in scholarship-Borgman offers case studies of data practices in the sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities, and then considers the implications of her findings for scholarly practice and research policy. To manage and exploit data over the long term, Borgman argues, requires massive investment in knowledge infrastructures; at stake is the future of scholarship.

Christine L. Borgman (Author), Marguerite Gavin (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Digital Divide: Writings for and Against Facebook, Youtube, Texting, and the Age of Social Netwo

Mark Bauerlein (Author), Peter Berkrot, Sands Xe (Narrator)

Audiobook

Virtually Human

Every day, social media is automatically uploading our thoughts, memories, preferences, beliefs, and history to a virtual existence, essentially creating a “mindfile” of users. From this mindfile, thousands of software engineers across the globe are working on “mindware” to create personalities and humanlike consciousness in computer software—or cyberconsciousness. In the next decade or two, these efforts will result in the first digital copies of our identities, which will be our “mindclones.” As we communicate with our own mindclones, and as they and we interact with mindclones of other people, even those whose bodies have died, these cyberconscious beings will become part of the fabric of our daily lives and routines. In Virtually Human, author Martine Rothblatt shares her insights into how cyberconsciousness will manifest in our lives and what we need to consider when a new, high-tech population of mindclones awakens to the rights, privileges, and obligations humans take for granted. With her passion, commitment, and continued financial investment in this emerging technology, she is poised to be a leader in the paradigm shift already under way. Virtually Human conveys in clear, positive language a profound understanding of how close we are to achieving a full simulation of the human brain via software and computer technology. It raises numerous ethical and moral questions we absolutely need to address now, before the technology becomes commercially viable and accessible to all of us. Rothblatt launches an urgent investigation into what we will all face over the coming decades as our relationship with our virtual selves evolves and deepens. She gives us the philosophical and technological tools to understand the far-reaching implications of artificial intelligence. Martine Rothblatt has been at the forefront of AI research and is a clearheaded—and optimistic—thinker when it comes to understanding the ethical concerns that will play a significant role as we move toward living side by side with our mindclones. Virtually Human will be the essential companion audiobook to the future of mankind.

Martine Rothblatt (Author), Jeff Cummings, Laural Merlington (Narrator)

Audiobook

Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It

Richard A. Clarke warned America once before about the havoc terrorism would wreak on our national security-and he was right. Now he warns us of another threat, silent but equally dangerous. Cyber War is a powerful book about technology, government, and military strategy; about criminals, spies, soldiers, and hackers. This is the first book about the war of the future-cyber war-and a convincing argument that we may already be in peril of losing it. Cyber War goes behind the "geek talk" of hackers and computer scientists to explain clearly and convincingly what cyber war is, how cyber weapons work, and how vulnerable we are as a nation and as individuals to the vast and looming web of cyber criminals. From the first cyber crisis meeting in the White House a decade ago to the boardrooms of Silicon Valley and the electrical tunnels under Manhattan, Clarke and coauthor Robert K. Knake trace the rise of the cyber age and profile the unlikely characters and places at the epicenter of the battlefield. They recount the foreign cyber spies who hacked into the office of the Secretary of Defense, the control systems for U.S. electric power grids, and the plans to protect America's latest fighter aircraft. Economically and militarily, Clarke and Knake argue, what we've already lost in the new millennium's cyber battles is tantamount to the Soviet and Chinese theft of our nuclear bomb secrets in the 1940s and 1950s. The possibilities of what we stand to lose in an all-out cyber war-our individual and national security among them-are just as chilling. Powerful and convincing, Cyber War begins the critical debate about the next great threat to national security.

Richard A. Clarke, Robert K. Knake (Author), Pete Larkin (Narrator)

Audiobook

Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous

Here is the ultimate book on the worldwide movement of hackers, pranksters, and activists that operates under the non-name Anonymous, by the writer the Huffington Post says "knows all of [Anonymous's] deepest, darkest secrets." Half a dozen years ago, anthropologist Gabriella Coleman set out to study the rise of this global phenomenon just as some of its members were turning to political protest and dangerous disruption. She ended up becoming so closely connected to Anonymous that the tricky story of her inside-outside status as Anon confidante, interpreter, and erstwhile mouthpiece forms one of the themes of this witty and entirely engrossing book. The narrative brims with details unearthed from within a notoriously mysterious subculture, whose semi-legendary tricksters-such as Topiary, tflow, Anachaos, and Sabu-emerge as complex, diverse, politically and culturally sophisticated people. Propelled by years of chats and encounters with a multitude of hackers, Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy is filled with insights into the meaning of digital activism and little-understood facets of culture in the Internet age.

Gabriella Coleman (Author), Tavia Gilbert (Narrator)

Audiobook

Exploding Data: Reclaiming Our Cyber Security in the Digital Age

In this bracing book, Michael Chertoff makes clear that our laws and policies surrounding the protection of personal information, written for an earlier time, need to be completely overhauled in the Internet era. On the one hand, the collection of data-more widespread by business than by government, and impossible to stop-should be facilitated as an ultimate protection for society. On the other, standards under which information can be inspected, analyzed, or used must be significantly tightened. In offering his compelling call for action, Chertoff argues that what is at stake is not so much the simple loss of privacy, which is almost impossible to protect, but of individual autonomy-the ability to make personal choices free of manipulation or coercion. Offering colorful stories over many decades that illuminate the three periods of data gathering we have experienced, Chertoff explains the complex legalities surrounding issues of data collection and dissemination today, and charts a path that balances the needs of government, business, and individuals alike.

Michael Chertoff (Author), Jonathan Yen (Narrator)

Audiobook

ENIAC: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer

The true father of the modern computer was not John von Neumann, as he is generally credited. That honor belongs to the two men, John Mauchly and Presper Eckert, who built the world's first programmable computer: the legendary ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer). Mauchly and Eckert developed a revolutionary vision: to make electricity "think." Funded by the U.S. Army, the team they led constructed a behemoth weighing thirty tons with eighteen thousand vacuum tubes and miles of wiring that blazed a trail to the next generation of computers that quickly followed. Based on original interviews with surviving participants and the first study of Mauchly and Eckert's personal papers, ENIAC is a dramatic human story and a vital contribution to the history of technology that restores to the two inventors the legacy they deserve.

Scott McCartney (Author), Adams Morgan (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Numerati

Every day, we produce loads of data about ourselves simply by living in the modern world: We click web pages, flip channels, drive through automatic toll booths, shop with credit cards, and make cell phone calls. Now, in one of the greatest undertakings of the 21st century, a savvy group of mathematicians and computer scientists is beginning to sift through this data to dissect us and map out our next steps, profiling us as workers, shoppers, patients, voters, potential terrorists, even lovers. Their goal? To manipulate our behavior-what we buy, how we vote-without our even realizing it.In this tour-de-force of original reporting and analysis, journalist Stephen Baker provides us with a fascinating guide to the world we're all entering-and to the people controlling that world. "Captivating....An intriguing but disquieting look at a not too distant future when our thoughts will remain private, but computers will disclose our tastes, opinions, habits and quirks to curious parties, not all of whom have our best interests at heart."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Stephen Baker (Author), Paul Michael Garcia, Paul Michael Garcia (Narrator)

Audiobook

From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg: Disruptive Innovation in the Age of the Internet

John Naughton is The Observer's "Networker" columnist, a prominent blogger, and Vice-President of Wolfson College, Cambridge. The Times has said that his writings, "[it] draws on more than two decades of study to explain how the internet works and the challenges and opportunities it will offer to future generations," and Cory Doctrow raved that "this is the kind of primer you want to slide under your boss's door." In From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg, Naughton explores the living history of one of the most radically transformational technologies of all time. 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? While explaining in highly engaging language the way the internet works and how it got to be the way it is, technologist John Naughton has distilled the noisy chatter surrounding the technology's relentless evolution into nine essential areas of understanding. In doing so, he affords readers deeper insight into the information economy and supplies the requisite knowledge to make better use of the technologies and networks around us, highlighting some of their fascinating and far-reaching implications along the way.

John Naughton (Author), Daniel Weyman (Narrator)

Audiobook

Computers Audiobooks in Science & Technology