Showing titles in Computers & Technology

Data engineering has grown rapidly in the past decade, leaving many software engineers, data scientists, and analysts looking for a comprehensive view of this practice. With this practical book, you'll learn how to plan and build systems to serve the needs of your organization and customers by evaluating the best technologies available through the framework of the data engineering lifecycle.

From mechanical looms to combustion engines to early computers, new technologies have always provoked panic about workers being replaced by machines. In the past, such fears have been misplaced, and many economists maintain that they remain so today. Yet in A World Without Work, Daniel Susskind shows why this time really is different. Advances in artificial intelligence mean that all kinds of jobs are increasingly at risk.

At most technology companies, you'll reach Senior software engineer, the career level for software engineers, in five to eight years. At the career level, your company's career ladder won't require that you work towards the next promotion; being promoted further is an exception rather than expected. This is also when many engineers are first given an opportunity to move into engineering management.

Shannon Vallor makes a wide-ranging, prophetic, and philosophical case for what AI could be: a way to reclaim our human potential for moral and intellectual growth, rather than lose ourselves in mirrors of the past. Rejecting prophecies of doom, she encourages us to pursue technology that helps us recover our sense of the possible, and with it the confidence and courage to repair a broken world. Vallor calls us to rethink what AI is and can be, and what we want to be with it.

Maria Ressa has spent decades speaking truth to power. But her work tracking disinformation networks seeded by her own government, spreading lies to its own citizens laced with anger and hate, has landed her in trouble with the most powerful man in the country: President Duterte. Now, hounded by the state, she has 10 arrest warrants against her name, and a potential 100+ years behind bars to prepare for - while she stands trial for speaking the truth.

Artificial intelligence is no longer the stuff of science fiction—it's a tangible, transformative force reshaping industries and redefining business success. Yet for many business leaders, the journey from curiosity to AI implementation can be daunting. Where do you start? How do you navigate the technical jargon and hype? And, most importantly, how can you leverage AI to boost profits, streamline operations and gain a competitive edge?

In an era where AI doesn’t just assist but interacts, learns, and collaborates, trust is no longer a one-way street. It’s now the new currency of power and relevance, reshaping how we connect across all levels: human to human, human to AI, and AI to AI. Mastering this multidirectional trust will unlock the jobs of the future and determine who thrives as traditional boundaries dissolve and influence is redefined.

Because Internet is for anyone who's ever puzzled over how to punctuate a text message or wondered where memes come from. It's the perfect book for understanding how the internet is changing the English language, why that's a good thing, and what our online interactions reveal about who we are. Language is humanity's most spectacular open-source project, and the internet is making our language change faster and in more interesting ways than ever before.

Creating superior intelligence would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, according to the world's pre-eminent AI expert, it could also be the last. In this groundbreaking book on the biggest question facing humanity, Stuart Russell explains why he has come to consider his own discipline an existential threat to his own species, and lays out how we can change course before it's too late. There is no one better placed to assess the promise and perils of the dominant technology of the future than Russell, who has spent decades at the forefront of AI research.

James Lovelock, creator of the Gaia hypothesis and the greatest environmental thinker of our time, has produced an astounding new theory about future of life on Earth. He argues that the anthropocene - the age in which humans acquired planetary-scale technologies - is, after 300 years, coming to an end. A new age - the novacene - has already begun.

Do you love gaming? Do you have ideas for games of your own and want to learn how to produce them professionally? Longtime game designer Justin Gary has the answers you seek. After 20 years in the gaming industry, creating such games as Solforge, Ascension, and the World of Warcraft Miniatures Game, Justin is now sharing all his secrets in Think Like a Game Designer. Best of all, Justin’s secrets are really simple, practical, and common sense steps you can take yourself.

The Simulation Hypothesis, by best-selling author, renowned MIT computer scientist, and Silicon Valley video game designer Rizwan Virk, explains one of the most daring and consequential theories of our time. 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.

Thoroughly reviewed and eagerly anticipated by the agile community, User Stories Applied offers a requirements process that saves time, eliminates rework, and leads directly to better software. The best way to build software that meets users' needs is to begin with "user stories": simple, clear, brief descriptions of functionality that will be valuable to real users. In User Stories Applied, Mike Cohn provides you with a front-to-back blueprint for writing these user stories and weaving them into your development lifecycle.

AI-powered programmes like ChatGPT have become valuable tools in the financial market, and proven to be incredibly beneficial to investors looking to identify investment opportunities and risks that might be overlooked by humans. Yet there is a darker side to these products, which we are only just beginning to fully understand. In this book, Rickards shows how models like ChatGPT work, and how they can be leveraged to capitalize on markets and avoid losses by providing accurate, up-to-date financial insights. Rickards’ guide is essential for anyone looking to navigate this new climate.

Though created by humans, our technologies, markets, and institutions often contain an antihuman agenda. Douglas Rushkoff, digital theorist and host of the NPR-One podcast Team Human, reveals the dynamics of this antihuman machinery and invites us to remake these aspects of society in ways that foster our humanity. In 100 aphoristic statements, his manifesto exposes how forces for human connection have turned into ones of isolation and repression.

After being schooled in the art of breaking and entering by her family, Jenny became an expert social engineer using the ‘human element’ to manipulate, persuade and influence people to gain access to buildings, data and information. A burglar for hire, con-artist and expert in non-verbal communications, deception and physical infiltration, she was paid to subvert security measures, using psychology, stagecraft, illusion and charm rather than technical hacking techniques. People Hacker shows how she learnt her craft.

Facebook knew it had a problem. The company had been humiliated by headlines, painted as complicit in the manipulation of democratic voting and an assault on the global social fabric. Their stated mission was to connect people, but they couldn't afford to destroy society in the process. And so they hired a small team to make sure they didn't repeat the same mistakes. From the Wall Street Journal reporter whose explosive stories have rocked Facebook and its leadership, this is the story of the Civic Integrity Team.

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.

In this brilliant, smart-thinking book about the power and influence of social media, Professor Sinan Aral shows how ‘hyper-socialisation’ has profoundly changed us. Why does fake news spread faster than the truth? Do products and ideas become popular because they are good or because they are rated highly online? How does influence actually work and what does it mean to be influential? Which strategies and tactics can help businesses survive and thrive in the New Social Age?

Nothing is harder to do these days than nothing. But in a world where our value is determined by our 24/7 data productivity...doing nothing may be our most important form of resistance. So argues artist and critic Jenny Odell in this field guide to doing nothing (at least as capitalism defines it). Odell sees our attention as the most precious - and overdrawn - resource we have.