This innovative title looks at the history of the Web from its early roots in the research projects of the US government to the interactive online world we know and use today. Fully illustrated with images of early computing equipment and the inside story of the online world's movers and shakers, the book explains the origins of the Web's key technologies, such as hypertext and mark-up language, the social ideas that underlie its networks, such as open source, and creative commons, and key moments in its development, such as the movement to broadband and the Dotcom Crash. Later ideas look at the origins of social networking and the latest developments on the Web, such as The Cloud and the Semantic Web. Following the design of the previous titles in the series, this book will be in a new, smaller format. It provides an informed and fascinating illustrated history of our most used and fastest-developing technology."--Provided by publisher.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are reshaping our world. Police forces use them to decide where to send police officers, judges to decide whom to release on bail, welfare agencies to decide which children are at risk of abuse, and Facebook and Google to rank content and distribute ads. In these spheres, and many others, powerful prediction tools are changing how decisions are made, narrowing opportunities for the exercise of judgment, empathy, and creativity. In Algorithms for the People, Josh Simons flips the narrative about how we govern these technologies. Instead of examining the impact of technology on democracy, he explores how to put democracy at the heart of AI governance. Drawing on his experience as a research fellow at Harvard University, a visiting research scientist on Facebook’s Responsible AI team, and a policy advisor to the UK’s Labour Party, Simons gets under the hood of predictive technologies, offering an accessible account of how they work, why they matter, and how to regulate the institutions that build and use them. He argues that prediction is political: human choices about how to design and use predictive tools shape their effects. Approaching predictive technologies through the lens of political theory casts new light on how democracies should govern political choices made outside the sphere of representative politics. Showing the connection between technology regulation and democratic reform, Simons argues that we must go beyond conventional theorizing of AI ethics to wrestle with fundamental moral and political questions about how the governance of technology can support the flourishing of democracy.

Dancing with Qubits, Second Edition, is a comprehensive quantum computing textbook that starts with an overview of why quantum computing is so different from classical computing and describes several industry use cases where it can have a major impact. A full description of classical computing and the mathematical underpinnings of quantum computing follows, helping you better understand concepts such as superposition, entanglement, and interference. Next up are circuits and algorithms, both basic and sophisticated, as well as a survey of the physics and engineering ideas behind how quantum computing hardware is built. Finally, the book looks to the future and gives you guidance on understanding how further developments may affect you.This new edition is updated throughout with more than 100 new exercises and includes new chapters on NISQ algorithms and quantum machine learning.Understanding quantum computing requires a lot of math, and this book doesn't shy away from the necessary math concepts you'll need. Each topic is explained thoroughly and with helpful examples, leaving you with a solid foundation of knowledge in quantum computing that will help you pursue and leverage quantum-led technologies..

Quantum computing is a beautiful fusion of quantum physics with computer science. It incorporates some of the most stunning ideas of physics from the twentieth century into an entirely new way of thinking about computation. Quantum Computing is appearing more and more in the news: China teleported a qubit from earth to a satellite; Shor's algorithm has put our current encryption methods at risk; quantum key distribution will make encryption safe again; Grover's algorithm will speed-up data searches. But what does all this really mean? How does it all work? This book explains quantum computing to readers comfortable with high school mathematics. This book is aimed at the general reader. It only requires high school mathematics, but still manages to thoroughly explain most of the standard topics. These include quantum teleportation, superdense coding, error correction and quantum algorithms. This is the first book aimed at this market. Other books that cover the same material assume a higher level of mathematical sophistication. This book simplifies that mathematics as much as possible. It proceeds gently with many examples--

Is AI going to take over the world? Have scientists created an artificial lifeform that can think on its own? Is it going to replace all our jobs, even ones, like doctors, teachers and care-workers? Are we about to enter an age where computers are better than humans at everything? The answers to these questions, as the expert authors of The AI Con make clear, are 'no', 'they wish', 'LOL', and 'definitely not'. In fact, these fears are all symptoms of the hype being used by tech corporations to justify data theft, motivate surveillance capitalism, and devalue human creativity so they can replace meaningful work with jobs that treat people like machines. Meanwhile, across healthcare, education, media, government and law-enforcement, 'AI' products are already being introduced that are unreliable, ineffective, unjust and dangerous. Packed with real-world examples, pithy arguments and expert insights, The AI Con arms you to spot AI hype in all its guises, expose the exploitation and power-grabs it aims to hide, and push back against it at work and in your daily life

"The riveting investigative account of Nvidia, the tech company that has exploded in value for its artificial intelligence computing hardware, and Jensen Huang, Nvidia's charismatic, uncompromising CEO In June of 2024, spurred by the frenzy of investment following the launch of ChatGPT, and thirty-one years after its founding in a Denny's restaurant, Nvidia became the most-valuable corporation on Earth. In The Thinking Machine, acclaimed journalist Stephen Witt recounts the unlikely story of how a manufacturer of video game components shocked Silicon Valley by conquering the market for AI hardware, and in the process re-invented the computer. Essential to Nvidia's meteoric success is its visionary CEO Jensen Huang, who more than a decade ago, on the basis of a few promising scientific results, bet his entire company on AI. Through unprecedented access to Huang, his friends, his investors, and his employees, Witt documents for the first time the company's epic rise and its iconoclastic CEO, who emerges as a compelling, single-minded, and ferocious leader, and now one of Silicon Valley's most influential figures. The Thinking Machine is the story of how Nvidia evolved from providing components for circuit boards to supplying hundred-million dollar supercomputers. It is the story of a determined entrepreneur who defied Wall Street to push his radical vision for computing, in the process becoming one of the wealthiest men alive. It is the story of a revolution in computer architecture, and the small group of renegade engineers who made it happen. And it's the story of our awesome and terrifying AI future, which Huang has billed as the "next industrial revolution," as a new kind of microchip unlocks hyper-realistic avatars, autonomous robots, self-driving cars, and new movies, art, and books, generated on command"--

Computers are everywhere. Some are highly visible, in laptops, tablets, cell phones, and smart watches. But most are invisible, like those in appliances, cars, medical equipment, transportation systems, power grids, and weapons. We never see the myriad computers that quietly collect, share, and sometimes leak personal data about us. Governments and companies increasingly use computers to monitor what we do. Social networks and advertisers know more about us than we should be comfortable with. Criminals have all-too-easy access to our data. Do we truly understand the power of computers in our world? In this updated edition of Understanding the Digital World, Brian Kernighan explains how computer hardware, software, and networks work. Topics include how computers are built and how they compute; what programming is; how the Internet and web operate; and how all of these affect security, privacy, property, and other important social, political, and economic issues. Kernighan touches on fundamental ideas from computer science and some of the inherent limitations of computers, and new sections in the book explore Python programming, big data, machine learning, and much more. Numerous color illustrations, notes on sources for further exploration, and a glossary explaining technical terms and buzzwords are included. Understanding the Digital World is a must-read for readers of all backgrounds who want to know more about computers and communications.