Fab
Fab

Author: Neil Gershenfeld

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2008-07-31

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 0786722045

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What if you could someday put the manufacturing power of an automobile plant on your desktop? It may sound far-fetched-but then, thirty years ago, the notion of "personal computers" in every home sounded like science fiction. According to Neil Gershenfeld, the renowned MIT scientist and inventor, the next big thing is personal fabrication -the ability to design and produce your own products, in your own home, with a machine that combines consumer electronics with industrial tools. Personal fabricators (PF's) are about to revolutionize the world just as personal computers did a generation ago. PF's will bring the programmability of the digital world to the rest of the world, by being able to make almost anything-including new personal fabricators. In FAB , Gershenfeld describes how personal fabrication is possible today, and how it is meeting local needs with locally developed solutions. He and his colleagues have created "fab labs" around the world, which, in his words, can be interpreted to mean "a lab for fabrication, or simply a fabulous laboratory." Using the machines in one of these labs, children in inner-city Boston have made saleable jewelry from scrap material. Villagers in India used their lab to develop devices for monitoring food safety and agricultural engine efficiency. Herders in the Lyngen Alps of northern Norway are developing wireless networks and animal tags so that their data can be as nomadic as their animals. And students at MIT have made everything from a defensive dress that protects its wearer's personal space to an alarm clock that must be wrestled into silence. These experiments are the vanguard of a new science and a new era-an era of "post-digital literacy" in which we will be as familiar with digital fabrication as we are with the of information processing. In this groundbreaking book, the scientist pioneering the revolution in personal fabrication reveals exactly what is being done, and how. The technology of FAB will allow people to create the objects they desire, and the kind of world they want to live in.

Funding a Revolution
Funding a Revolution

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 1999-02-11

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 0309062780

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The past 50 years have witnessed a revolution in computing and related communications technologies. The contributions of industry and university researchers to this revolution are manifest; less widely recognized is the major role the federal government played in launching the computing revolution and sustaining its momentum. Funding a Revolution examines the history of computing since World War II to elucidate the federal government's role in funding computing research, supporting the education of computer scientists and engineers, and equipping university research labs. It reviews the economic rationale for government support of research, characterizes federal support for computing research, and summarizes key historical advances in which government-sponsored research played an important role. Funding a Revolution contains a series of case studies in relational databases, the Internet, theoretical computer science, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality that demonstrate the complex interactions among government, universities, and industry that have driven the field. It offers a series of lessons that identify factors contributing to the success of the nation's computing enterprise and the government's role within it.

The Computing Universe
The Computing Universe

Author: Anthony J. G. Hey

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 415

ISBN-13: 0521766451

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This exciting and accessible book takes us on a journey from the early days of computers to the cutting-edge research of the present day that will shape computing in the coming decades. It introduces a fascinating cast of dreamers and inventors who brought these great technological developments into every corner of the modern world, and will open up the universe of computing to anyone who has ever wondered where his or her smartphone came from.

Hackers
Hackers

Author: Steven Levy

Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."

Published: 2010-05-19

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 1449393748

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This 25th anniversary edition of Steven Levy's classic book traces the exploits of the computer revolution's original hackers -- those brilliant and eccentric nerds from the late 1950s through the early '80s who took risks, bent the rules, and pushed the world in a radical new direction. With updated material from noteworthy hackers such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Stallman, and Steve Wozniak, Hackers is a fascinating story that begins in early computer research labs and leads to the first home computers. Levy profiles the imaginative brainiacs who found clever and unorthodox solutions to computer engineering problems. They had a shared sense of values, known as "the hacker ethic," that still thrives today. Hackers captures a seminal period in recent history when underground activities blazed a trail for today's digital world, from MIT students finagling access to clunky computer-card machines to the DIY culture that spawned the Altair and the Apple II.

Perspectives on the Computer Revolution
Perspectives on the Computer Revolution

Author: Zenon W. Pylyshyn

Publisher: Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice-Hall

Published: 1970

Total Pages: 568

ISBN-13:

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This text is designed to introduce students to the historical, intellectual and social context of computers and their development.

The Computer Revolution
The Computer Revolution

Author: Benjamin B. Wells

Publisher: Nova Publishers

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 9781560724988

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This timely book examines the computer revolution as it relates to each of its main areas of application. The author presents a well-honed analysis of the expectations and realisations of this extraordinary device. Revolutions seldom proceed according to a preset plan and the computer revolution is no exception. This book is essential reading for gaining an understanding of where they are now and where they may be expected to be tomorrow. Contents includes: Preface; Revolutionary Promises; The Quest for Machines that Think, Learn and Teach; Computers in the Classroom; Computers in the Classroom: Educators' Approaches; Computers and Intuition; The Romance of Computers; Educational Software; Computer Games; The Electronic Classroom; Computers for Research; Armageddon: The Year 2000; and Conclusions.

The Computer Revolution
The Computer Revolution

Author: Daniel E. Sichel

Publisher:

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13:

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During the 1980s and into this decade, U.S. businesses poured billions of dollars into computers and other information technology. Yet the productivity performance of the U.S. economy in the 1980s remained lackluster--especially in the service sector--leading many observers to suspect that companies were not getting their money's worth from these high-tech investments. At the same time, academic research found little evidence of a productivity payoff. But have the tables now turned? With an apparent improvement in productivity in recent years, much academic and popular opinion now suggests that the payback is at hand or just around the corner. As the nation embarks on a major effort to develop an Information Superhighway, it is critical for policymakers, opinion leaders, and others to understand the contribution and role of information technology in the economy during recent decades. This book provides a straightforward guide to the economic issues underlying the debates about these issues, using quantitative and historical analysis, supplemented with interviews of small and large service-sector companies. To set the stage, Daniel Sichel reviews the debates over the role of computers and summarizes the essential facts about computer use, with a particular emphasis on software. Going beyond basic facts, Sichel describes an economic framework for assessing the aggregate economic impact of computers in recent decades and for looking ahead at this impact in the future. Quantitative estimates from this framework, along with supporting historical and interview evidence, place limits on the contribution of computers to the overall economy. When compared to the size of the slowdown in productivity growth in the early 1970s, the overall impact of computers appears relatively modest, in part because the share of computers in the nation's capital stock is surprisingly small. Looking ahead, Sichel also raises questions as to whether computers are likely to solve the nation's productivity woes in the future.

The Computer Revolution in Canada
The Computer Revolution in Canada

Author: John N. Vardalas

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2001-07-27

Total Pages: 421

ISBN-13: 0262264986

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The forces that shaped Canada's digital innovations in the postwar period. After World War II, other major industrialized nations responded to the technological and industrial hegemony of the United States by developing their own design and manufacturing competence in digital electronic technology. In this book John Vardalas describes the quest for such competence in Canada, exploring the significant contributions of the civilian sector but emphasizing the role of the Canadian military in shaping radical technological change. As he shows, Canada's determination to be an active participant in research and development work on advanced weapons systems, and in the testing of those weapons systems, was a cornerstone of Canadian technological development during the years 1945-1980. Vardalas presents case studies of such firms as Ferranti-Canada, Sperry Gyroscope of Canada, and Control Data of Canada. In contrast to the standard nationalist interpretation of Canadian subsidiaries of transnational corporations as passive agents, he shows them to have been remarkably innovative and explains how their aggressive programs to develop all-Canadian digital R&D and manufacturing capacities influenced technological development in the United States and in Great Britain. While underlining the unprecedented role of the military in the creation of peacetime scientific and technical skills, Vardalas also examines the role of government and university research programs, including Canada's first computerized systems for mail sorting and airline reservations. Overall, he presents a nuanced account of how national economic, political, and corporate forces influenced the content, extent, and direction of digital innovation in Canada.

The Quickest Revolution
The Quickest Revolution

Author: Jacopo Pantaleoni

Publisher: Mimesis International

Published: 2023-09-28

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 8869774511

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Since their invention, computers have kept revolutionizing the world at a staggering pace. And yet, if on one side this ongoing revolution keeps providing an incessant stream of novel and previously unimaginable technologies, on the other, as with all revolutions, its profound effects threaten to upend much of the previous world order. Facing the many questions that this change is urgently raising will require to acquire a novel and interdisciplinary understanding of the powerful forces that govern this process. Sitting squarely at the crossroads of computer science, history, socioeconomics, ethics, and philosophy, and written by an insider who contributed foundational work to many of the latest and most pervasive technologies this book offers a much-needed reframing of the past, present and future of computing, that goes far beyond the typical chronological record of events and arms us with a uniquely broad and integrated analysis of their complex origins and their numerous side effects.