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Author
Description
A decade ago, Wolf's Proust and the Squid revealed what we know about how the brain learns to read and how reading changes the way we think and feel. Now that we are completely immersed in the internet and digital devices, our ways of processing language have altered dramatically. In a series of letters, Wolf describes her hopes and concerns about what is happening to the brain as it adapts to digital mediums, illuminating complex ideas with anecdotes...
Author
Formats
Description
"The consequential age we are living in will be remembered as one of the great turning points in civilization. Once we turn, though, where will we be? That is the compelling question Al Gore sets out to answer by examining the drivers of global change, connecting the dots among the social, economic, and political forces shaping our present and future. A rising global consciousness is forcing people around the world, but especially Americans, to rethink...
Author
Pub. Date
2019.
Description
Minimalism is the art of knowing how much is just enough. Digital minimalism applies this idea to our personal technology. It's the key to living a focused life in an increasingly noisy world. In this timely and enlightening book, the bestselling author of Deep Work introduces a philosophy for technology use that has already improved countless lives. Digital minimalists are all around us. They're the calm, happy people who can hold long conversations...
65) Breakthrough
Pub. Date
[2015]
Physical Desc
2 videodiscs (270 min.) : sound, color with black and white sequences ; 4 3/4 in.
Description
Examines cutting edge developments in science, technology, and medicine, covering a variety of topics that include: new findings in pandemic research; cyborg technologies; new developments in understanding the brain; the latest advances in extending human life; innovations in energy resources; developments under way to countervail potential water shortages.
Author
Formats
Description
"It's no secret that AI is changing the way we live, work, love, and entertain ourselves. Dating apps are using AI to pick our potential partners. Retailers are using AI to predict our behavior and desires. Rogue actors are using AI to persuade us with Twitter bots and fake news. Companies are using AI to hire us-or not. This is just the beginning. As AI becomes smarter and more humanlike, our societies, our economies, and our humanity will undergo...
Author
Pub. Date
[2021]
Physical Desc
44 pages : color illustrations ; 23 x 29 cm
Description
"In biomimicry, scientists imitate traits found in nature. An engineer shapes the nose of his bullet train like a kingfisher's beak. A scientist models her solar cell on the mighty leaf. Discover how ten inventors were inspired by animals and plants to create cutting-edge technology"--
Author
Pub. Date
[2015]
Physical Desc
302 pages : color illustrations ; 26 cm.
Description
"This vivid, engrossing book reveals the fascinating stories behind the objects in your world, what you wear, what you eat, what entertains you, and more. Discover the history behind the world's tallest skyscrapers, find out when people first started drinking caffeine and why it wakes us up, and learn how GPS came to be,"--Amazon.com.
Pub. Date
c2012
Physical Desc
352 p. : ill. (chiefly col.) ; 26 cm.
Description
"Imagine it is the seventh century. As most of Europe continues its descent into a long period of intellectually dormancy, a quiet yet powerful academic revolution is erupting in another corner of the world. Over the next centuries, the geniuses of Muslim society will thrust the boundaries of knowledge forward to such a degree that their innovations still shape civilizations to this day. The staggering achievements of these men and women influenced...
70) Emily eternal
Author
Pub. Date
2019.
Physical Desc
294 pages ; 24 cm.
Description
Emily is an artificial consciousness, designed in a lab to help humans process trauma, which is particularly helpful when the sun begins to die 5 billion years before scientists agreed it was supposed to. Her beloved human race is screwed, and so is Emily. That is, until she finds a potential answer buried deep in the human genome that may save them all. But not everyone is convinced Emily has the best solution--or the best intentions. Before her...
71) Quirky
Author
Pub. Date
[2018]
Physical Desc
1 audio media player : digital, HD audio ; 3 3/8 x 2 1/8 in.
Description
"Melissa Schilling, one of the world's leading experts on innovation, invites us into the lives of eight people--Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Elon Musk, Dean Kamen, Nikola Tesla, Marie Curie, Thomas Edison, and Steve Jobs--to identify the traits and experiences that drove them to make spectacular breakthroughs, over and over again. While all innovators possess incredible intellect, intellect alone, she shows, does not create a breakthrough...
Author
Pub. Date
2008
Physical Desc
xvii, 316 pages ; 21 cm
Description
The extraordinary, previously untold story of two master scientists, enormously gifted, fatally flawed men who found the solution to global starvation. Together they discovered a way to make bread out of air, built city-sized factories, controlled world markets, and saved millions of lives. Their invention continues to feed us today; without it, more than two billion people would starve.
Author
Pub. Date
[2018]
Physical Desc
228 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm
Description
"Insects walk on water, snakes slither, and fish swim. Animals move with astounding grace, speed, and versatility: how do they do it, and what can we learn from them? In How to Walk on Water and Climb up Walls, David Hu takes readers on an accessible, wondrous journey into the world of animal motion. From basement labs at MIT to the rain forests of Panama, Hu shows how animals have adapted and evolved to traverse their environments, taking advantage...
Author
Formats
Description
"Precision is so essential a component of modern human life and existence that we seldom stop to think about it. [This book] examines the relatively recent development of the notion of precision--the people who developed it and the ways in which it has shaped the modern world--and the challenges posed and losses risked by our veneration and pursuit of increasingly precise tools and methods. The history of precision as a concept and in practice begins...
77) In the age of AI
Pub. Date
[2020]
Physical Desc
1 videodisc (115 min.) : sound, color ; 4 3/4 in.
Description
The promise and perils of AI; from fears about work and privacy to rivalry between the US and China. A new industrial revolution that will reshape and disrupt our lives, our jobs and our world, and allow the emergence of the surveillance society.
Author
Pub. Date
[2015]
Physical Desc
xviii, 334 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Description
Examines the effects of accelerating technology on the economic system.
"In Silicon Valley the phrase "disruptive technology" is tossed around on a casual basis. No one doubts that technology has the power to devastate entire industries and upend various sectors of the job market. But Rise of the Robots asks a bigger question: Can accelerating technology disrupt our entire economic system to the point where a fundamental restructuring is required?...
Author
Pub. Date
[2017]
Physical Desc
xvii, 255 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Description
News coverage is often described as the first draft of history. From the publication in 1690 of the first American newspaper, Publick Occurrences, to the latest tweet, news has been disseminated to inform its audience about what is going on in the world. But the preservation of news content has had it technological, legal, and organizational challenges. Over the centuries, as new means of finding, producing, and distributing news were developed, the...
Author
Pub. Date
[2016]
Physical Desc
viii, 322 pages ; 25 cm
Description
Amy Webb is a noted futurist who combines curiosity, skepticism, colorful storytelling, and deeply reported, real-world analysis in this essential book for understanding the future. The Signals are Talking reveals a systematic way of evaluating new ideas bubbling up on the horizon--distinguishing what is a real trend from the merely trendy. This book helps us hear which signals are talking sense, and which are simply nonsense, so that we might know...
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