World of Computing


Book Description

This engaging work provides a concise introduction to the exciting world of computing, encompassing the theory, technology, history, and societal impact of computer software and computing devices. Spanning topics from global conflict to home gaming, international business, and human communication, this text reviews the key concepts unpinning the technology which has shaped the modern world. Topics and features: introduces the foundations of computing, the fundamentals of algorithms, and the essential concepts from mathematics and logic used in computer science; presents a concise history of computing, discussing the historical figures who made important contributions, and the machines which formed major milestones; examines the fields of human−computer interaction, and software engineering; provides accessible introductions to the core aspects of programming languages, operating systems, and databases; describes the Internet revolution, the invention of the smartphone, and the rise of social media, as well as the Internet of Things and cryptocurrencies; explores legal and ethical aspects of computing, including issues of hacking and cybercrime, and the nature of online privacy, free speech and censorship; discusses such innovations as distributed systems, service-oriented architecture, software as a service, cloud computing, and embedded systems; includes key learning topics and review questions in every chapter, and a helpful glossary. Offering an enjoyable overview of the fascinating and broad-ranging field of computing, this easy-to-understand primer introduces the general reader to the ideas on which the digital world was built, and the historical developments that helped to form the modern age.




Organic Computing – Technical Systems for Survival in the Real World


Book Description

This book is a comprehensive introduction into Organic Computing (OC), presenting systematically the current state-of-the-art in OC. It starts with motivating examples of self-organising, self-adaptive and emergent systems, derives their common characteristics and explains the fundamental ideas for a formal characterisation of such systems. Special emphasis is given to a quantitative treatment of concepts like self-organisation, emergence, autonomy, robustness, and adaptivity. The book shows practical examples of architectures for OC systems and their applications in traffic control, grid computing, sensor networks, robotics, and smart camera systems. The extension of single OC systems into collective systems consisting of social agents based on concepts like trust and reputation is explained. OC makes heavy use of learning and optimisation technologies; a compact overview of these technologies and related approaches to self-organising systems is provided. So far, OC literature has been published with the researcher in mind. Although the existing books have tried to follow a didactical concept, they remain basically collections of scientific papers. A comprehensive and systematic account of the OC ideas, methods, and achievements in the form of a textbook which lends itself to the newcomer in this field has been missing so far. The targeted reader of this book is the master student in Computer Science, Computer Engineering or Electrical Engineering - or any other newcomer to the field of Organic Computing with some technical or Computer Science background. Readers can seek access to OC ideas from different perspectives: OC can be viewed (1) as a „philosophy“ of adaptive and self-organising - life-like - technical systems, (2) as an approach to a more quantitative and formal understanding of such systems, and finally (3) a construction method for the practitioner who wants to build such systems. In this book, we first try to convey to the reader a feeling of the special character of natural and technical self-organising and adaptive systems through a large number of illustrative examples. Then we discuss quantitative aspects of such forms of organisation, and finally we turn to methods of how to build such systems for practical applications.




The World Computer


Book Description

In The World Computer Jonathan Beller forcefully demonstrates that the history of commodification generates information itself. Out of the omnipresent calculus imposed by commodification, information emerges historically as a new money form. Investigating its subsequent financialization of daily life and colonization of semiotics, Beller situates the development of myriad systems for quantifying the value of people, objects, and affects as endemic to racial capitalism and computation. Built on oppression and genocide, capital and its technical result as computation manifest as racial formations, as do the machines and software of social mediation that feed racial capitalism and run on social difference. Algorithms, derived from for-profit management strategies, conscript all forms of expression—language, image, music, communication—into the calculus of capital such that even protest may turn a profit. Computational media function for the purpose of extraction rather than ameliorating global crises, and financialize every expressive act, converting each utterance into a wager. Repairing this ecology of exploitation, Beller contends, requires decolonizing information and money, and the scripting of futures wagered by the cultural legacies and claims of those in struggle.




The Closed World


Book Description

The Closed World offers a radically new alternative to the canonical histories of computers and cognitive science. Arguing that we can make sense of computers as tools only when we simultaneously grasp their roles as metaphors and political icons, Paul Edwards shows how Cold War social and cultural contexts shaped emerging computer technology--and were transformed, in turn, by information machines. The Closed World explores three apparently disparate histories--the history of American global power, the history of computing machines, and the history of subjectivity in science and culture--through the lens of the American political imagination. In the process, it reveals intimate links between the military projects of the Cold War, the evolution of digital computers, and the origins of cybernetics, cognitive psychology, and artificial intelligence. Edwards begins by describing the emergence of a "closed-world discourse" of global surveillance and control through high-technology military power. The Cold War political goal of "containment" led to the SAGE continental air defense system, Rand Corporation studies of nuclear strategy, and the advanced technologies of the Vietnam War. These and other centralized, computerized military command and control projects--for containing world-scale conflicts--helped closed-world discourse dominate Cold War political decisions. Their apotheosis was the Reagan-era plan for a " Star Wars" space-based ballistic missile defense. Edwards then shows how these military projects helped computers become axial metaphors in psychological theory. Analyzing the Macy Conferences on cybernetics, the Harvard Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory, and the early history of artificial intelligence, he describes the formation of a "cyborg discourse." By constructing both human minds and artificial intelligences as information machines, cyborg discourse assisted in integrating people into the hyper-complex technological systems of the closed world. Finally, Edwards explores the cyborg as political identity in science fiction--from the disembodied, panoptic AI of 2001: A Space Odyssey, to the mechanical robots of Star Wars and the engineered biological androids of Blade Runner--where Information Age culture and subjectivity were both reflected and constructed. Inside Technology series




Artificial Unintelligence


Book Description

A guide to understanding the inner workings and outer limits of technology and why we should never assume that computers always get it right. In Artificial Unintelligence, Meredith Broussard argues that our collective enthusiasm for applying computer technology to every aspect of life has resulted in a tremendous amount of poorly designed systems. We are so eager to do everything digitally—hiring, driving, paying bills, even choosing romantic partners—that we have stopped demanding that our technology actually work. Broussard, a software developer and journalist, reminds us that there are fundamental limits to what we can (and should) do with technology. With this book, she offers a guide to understanding the inner workings and outer limits of technology—and issues a warning that we should never assume that computers always get things right. Making a case against technochauvinism—the belief that technology is always the solution—Broussard argues that it's just not true that social problems would inevitably retreat before a digitally enabled Utopia. To prove her point, she undertakes a series of adventures in computer programming. She goes for an alarming ride in a driverless car, concluding “the cyborg future is not coming any time soon”; uses artificial intelligence to investigate why students can't pass standardized tests; deploys machine learning to predict which passengers survived the Titanic disaster; and attempts to repair the U.S. campaign finance system by building AI software. If we understand the limits of what we can do with technology, Broussard tells us, we can make better choices about what we should do with it to make the world better for everyone.




The Once and Future Turing


Book Description

Alan Turing (1912–1954) made seminal contributions to mathematical logic, computation, computer science, artificial intelligence, cryptography and theoretical biology. In this volume, outstanding scientific thinkers take a fresh look at the great range of Turing's contributions, on how the subjects have developed since his time, and how they might develop still further. The contributors include Martin Davis, J. M. E. Hyland, Andrew R. Booker, Ueli Maurer, Kanti V. Mardia, S. Barry Cooper, Stephen Wolfram, Christof Teuscher, Douglas Richard Hofstadter, Philip K. Maini, Thomas E. Woolley, Eamonn A. Gaffney, Ruth E. Baker, Richard Gordon, Stuart Kauffman, Scott Aaronson, Solomon Feferman, P. D. Welch and Roger Penrose. These specially commissioned essays will provoke and engross the reader who wishes to understand better the lasting significance of one of the twentieth century's deepest thinkers.




A People’s History of Computing in the United States


Book Description

Silicon Valley gets all the credit for digital creativity, but this account of the pre-PC world, when computing meant more than using mature consumer technology, challenges that triumphalism. The invention of the personal computer liberated users from corporate mainframes and brought computing into homes. But throughout the 1960s and 1970s a diverse group of teachers and students working together on academic computing systems conducted many of the activities we now recognize as personal and social computing. Their networks were centered in New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Illinois, but they connected far-flung users. Joy Rankin draws on detailed records to explore how users exchanged messages, programmed music and poems, fostered communities, and developed computer games like The Oregon Trail. These unsung pioneers helped shape our digital world, just as much as the inventors, garage hobbyists, and eccentric billionaires of Palo Alto. By imagining computing as an interactive commons, the early denizens of the digital realm seeded today’s debate about whether the internet should be a public utility and laid the groundwork for the concept of net neutrality. Rankin offers a radical precedent for a more democratic digital culture, and new models for the next generation of activists, educators, coders, and makers.




Computing and Coding in the Real World


Book Description

"First published in 2017 by Wayland"--Copyright page.




The Computing Universe


Book Description

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.




Cloud Computing


Book Description

Unleash the power of cloud computing using Azure, AWS and Apache HadoopKey features Provides a sound understanding of the Cloud computing concepts, architecture and its applications Explores the practical benefits of Cloud computing services and deployment models in details Cloud Computing Architecture, Cloud Computing Life Cycle (CCLC), Load balancing approach, Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC), Google App Engine (GAE) Virtualization and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Cloud Computing applications - Google Apps, Dropbox Cloud and Apple iCloud and its uses in various sectors - Education, Healthcare, Politics, Business, and Agriculture Cloud Computing platforms - Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Open Nebulla, Eucalyptus, Open Stack, Nimbus and The Apache Hadoop Architecture Adoption of Cloud Computing technology and strategies for migration to the cloud Cloud computing adoption case studies - Sub-Saharan Africa and India Chapter-wise Questions with Summary and Examination Model Question papers Description With the advent of internet, there is a complete paradigm shift in the manner we comprehend computing. Need to enable ubiquity, convenient and on-demand access to resources in highly scalable and resilient environments that can be remotely accessed, gave birth to the concept of Cloud computing. The acceptance is so rapid that the notion influences sophisticated innovations in academia, industry and research world-wide and hereby change the landscape of information technology as we thought of. Through this book, the authors tried to incorporate core principles and basic notion of cloud computing in a step-by-step manner and tried to emphasize on key concepts for clear and thorough insight into the subject.This book begins with the fundamentals of cloud computing, its service and deployment models, architecture, as well as applications and platforms. It presents some key enterprise strategies and models for the adoption of and migration to cloud. Privacy and security issues and challenges also form a major part of our discussion in the book as well as case studies of cloud computing adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa and India. The book concludes with a discussion of several advanced topics, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Open Nebulla, Microsoft Azure, Apache Hadoop and Google App Engine (GAE). What will you learn Learn about the Importance of Cloud Computing in Current Digital Era Understand the Core concepts and Principles of Cloud Computing with practical benefits Learn about the Cloud Deployment models and Services Discover how Cloud Computing Architecture works Learn about the Load balancing approach and Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) Learn about the Virtualization and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) concepts Learn about the various Cloud Computing applications, Platforms and Security concepts Understand the adoption Cloud Computing technology and strategies for migration to the cloud Case Studies for Cloud computing adoption - Sub-Saharan Africa and India Who this book is forThis book is intended for students of B.E., B.Tech., B.Sc., M.Sc., M.E., and M.Tech. as a text book. The content is designed keeping in mind the bench marked curriculum of various universities (both National and International). The book covers not only the technical details of how cloud works but also exhibits the strategy, technical design, and in-depth knowledge required to migrate existing applications to the cloud. Therefore, it makes it relevant for the beginners who wants to learn cloud computing right from the foundation. Aspiring Cloud Computing Researchers Instructors, Academicians and Professionals, if they are familiar with cloud, can use this book to learn various open source cloud computing tools, applications, technologies. They will also get a flavor of various international certification exams available. Table of contents1. Foundation of Cloud Computing 2. Cloud Services and Deployment Models3. Cloud Computing Architecture4. Virtualization Technology5. Service Oriented Architecture6. Cloud Security and Privacy7. Cloud Computing Applications8. Cloud Computing Technologies, Platform and Services9. Adoption of Cloud Computing10. Model Paper 111. Model Paper 212. Model Paper 313. Model Paper 4 About the authorKamal Kant Hiran is working as Associate Professor & Head IT in the BlueCrest University College, Liberia, West Africa as well as Research Fellow, Aalborg University, Copenhagen, Denmark. He has rich experience of 14+ years as an academician and researcher in Asia, Africa and Europe. His research interests include Cloud Computing adoption theories and framework, Internet of Things (IoT) and Digital Image and Video Processing. He has several awards on his credit such as International travel grant for Germany from ITS Europe, Gold Medal Award in M. Tech (ICT), IEEE Ghana Section Award, IEEE Senior Member Recognition, IEEE Student branch award and Best Research paper award from the University of Gondar, Ethiopia. He has published research papers in peer-reviewed international journals and conferences. He is Reviewer and Editorial board member of various reputed International Journals in Elsevier, Springer, IEEE, Bentham Science, IGI Global, IJSET, IJTEE, IJSTR and IJERT. He is the active member in organizing many international seminars, workshops and conferences in India, Ghana, Liberia, Denmark, Jordan and Ethiopia.His website: http://www.kamalhiran.in/His LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kamal-kant-hiran-4553b643Ruchi Doshi is having more than 10 years of academic, research and software development experience in Asia and Africa. She is working as Registrar in the BlueCrest University College, Liberia, West Africa an also worked with BlueCrest University College, Ghana; Amity University, India & Trimax IT Infrastructure & Services as software engineer. She is interested in the field of Cloud computing, Computer vision, Artificial Intelligence and latest technology used in the higher education. She has published research papers in peer-reviewed international journals and conferences. She is Reviewer, Advisor, Ambassador & Editorial board member of various reputed International Journals and Conferences such as MIR Labs, USA, IEEE W4S, IJCS and IJERT. She is the active member in organizing many international events in India, Ghana, and Liberia. Her LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruchi-doshi-96bb63b4 Dr. Fagbola Temitayo is currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow (PDF) at Durban University of Technology, South Africa and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science, Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, Nigeria with over 10 years of proven teaching and research experience. He bagged a Ph.D., M.Sc and B.Tech degrees in Computer Science with strong research interests in cloud computing ecosystem, deep learning, computational intelligence, social media big-data analytics, information security, decision support system and video processing. Dr Fagbola is a member of the South African Institute of Computer Scientists and Information Technologists (SAICSIT), Asian Council of Science Editors (ACSE), Machine Intelligence Institute of Africa (MIIA), Computer Professionals (Registration Council) of Nigeria (CPN), the International Association of Engineers (IAENG) and DataHack4FI in Africa. He has over 50 refereed publications in referred international journals and conference proceedings to his credit and currently serves as a reviewer for over 15 reputable international journals. He is also a recipient of the ACM FAT's grant in November 2018.His LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/temitayo-fagbola-5941a2169Mehul Mahrishi is currently working as an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Computer Science & Engineering at the Swami Keshvanand Institute of Technology, Management and Gramothan, Jaipur, India. He is a life member of International Association of Engineers and has published several research articles in National/International Journals, Conferences including Global Journals, ICCCTAM-Dubai, ICMLC-Singapore, IACC and chapters in books. He is also an active technical reviewer of Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing (SCI & Scopus-Elsevier). His research activities are currently twofold: while the first research activity is set to explore the developmental enhancements video processing and analysis; the second major research theme is focused on the emerging capabilities of cloud computing. Mr. Mahrishi is rewarded at number of occasions in various domains including Recognition as an active reviewer by Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing (JPDC, Elsevier, SCI & Scopus Indexed), IEEE continuing education certification for "e;Cloud Computing Enable Technologies and Recognition for outstanding performance in Campus Connect Program by Infosys, India.His LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mehuk-mahrishi-30979026




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