Authors: Robert Ellis Smith.
Paperback, 407 pages
Publisher: Privacy Journal
Publication Date: 2004-04-30


Reviews :

    This new book explores the hidden niches of American history to discover the tug between Americans' yearning for privacy and their insatiable curiosity. The book describes Puritan monitoring in Colonial New England, then shows how the attitudes of the founders placed the concept of privacy in the Constitution. This panoramic view continues with the coming of tabloid journalism in the Nineteenth Century, and the reaction to it in the form of a new right - the right to privacy. The book includes histories of wiretapping, of credit reporting, of sexual practices, of Social Security numbers and ID cards, of modern principles of privacy protection, and of the coming of the Internet and the new challenges to personal privacy it brings.

"Robert Ellis Smith's expose of privacy invasion will be one of the sleeper best-selling books..." wrote columnist William Safire in The New York Times, December 1999. "His numerous books are required reading for anyone concerned about the ongoing threats," said Simson Garfinkel in Database Nation, 2000.

Here's a chapter-by-chapter description: "Watchfulness" describes church monitoring in the Colonial period. "Serenity" shows the craving for solitude by our founders, which shaped the rights they enshrined in the Constitution. "Mistrust" recounts early battles over confidentiality in the Post Office, the Census, and Western Union. "Space" describes the quest for privacy in living arrangements (including the first moves to suburbia after the Civil War) and the lack of privacy on Southern plantations. "Curiosity" traces the epic development of sensational journalism in the Nineteenth Century. "Brandeis" chronicles how Louis Brandeis reacted to gossip journalism and other new technology by "inventing" a legal right to privacy. "Wiretaps" is the story of electronic surveillance from the invention of the telephone to the 1970s.

"Sex" traces changing attitudes towards sexual privacy over two centuries, and provides a chronicle of a Clintonesque sex scandal that changed attitudes forever after the 1880s. "Torts" describes court battles that eventually provided great latitude for gossip journalism. "The Constitution" is a remarkable new look at the very narrow decisions of the Supreme Court that shaped the very narrow Constitutional protections for privacy in the Twenty-first Century.

"Numbers" tells for the first time where Social Security numbers came from and how they are used now, and describes subtle political efforts to create a universal identity document in the U.S. "Databanks" provides histories of credit reporting, database marketing, and government record keeping from the 1950s to the present. "Cyberspace" is a look back at the overnight development of the World Wide Web and its impact on personal privacy.

Lastly, the epilogue entitled "Ben Franklin's Web Site" offers specific tips for protecting your privacy. It is modern guidance that Ben Franklin himself would have provided on his Web site....

Authors: James Newman.
Paperback, 224 pages
Publisher: Routledge
Publication Date: 2004-03-12
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    James Newman's lucid and engaging introduction guides the reader through the world of videogaming, providing a history of the videogame, from its origins in the computer lab to its contemporary status as a global entertainment industry, with characters such as Lara Croft and Sonic the Hedgehog familiar even to those who've never been near a games console. Newman introduces: What is a videogame?; Why study videogames?; a brief history of videogames, from Pac-Man to Pokemon; the videogame industry; who plays videogames?; are videogames bad for you?; the narrative structure of videogames; and the future of videogames. Newman traces the battle for dominance among key players such as Atari, Nintendo and Sega, explains how new videogames are developed and produced, and outlines research into the effects of videogaming on players, challenging the popular notion that too much Playstation is bad for your health....

Authors: Aaron Betsky. Ole Bouman. David Deutsch. Elizabeth Diller/Ricardo Scofidio. Monika Fleischmann/Wolfgang Strauss. Sulan Kolatan/William Mac Donald. William J. Mitchell. Kas Oosterhuis. Hani Rashid. Jeffrey Shaw. Peter Weibel. Peter Zoller.
Paperback, 272 pages
Publisher: Birkhäuser Basel
Publication Date: 2005-09-09
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    The creation of new environments through the use of developments in Information Technology is significantly altering not only architecture itself but also the roles and tasks of the architects. Architecture can no longer be described in the terms we are familiar with since it no longer corresponds to the form of architecture as we know it: an inclusive and exclusive structure, clearly defined, with a single interior and a single exterior. For architects, the challenge of the future will increasingly lie in creatively coming to terms with hybrid environments, understanding and exploiting the design potential of digital spaces within the physical world, and redefining the role of architecture within a visually dominated culture. This volume presents a valuable and attractive contribution to the contemporary discussion on this subject....

Authors: ANTHONY G. WILHELM.
Kindle Edition, 192 pages
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Publication Date: 2007-03-16
Edition: 1

Reviews :

   

Democracy in the Digital Age is a fascinating philosophical exploration of how the emerging information and communication technologies are impacting political participation in the United States. Rather than being the antidote to democratic ills, the political conversations occurring online are neither inclusive nor deliberative, suggesting that new technologies, as currently designed and used, are as much threats to progress as they are vehicles of progress. Wilhelm finds that there is often an appearance of progress, but negligible advancement of the human condition. He discusses the four features of digitally-mediated political life (resources, inclusiveness, deliberation, and design) and demonstrates the need for a strong public policy.

...

Authors: Steven T. Karris.
Paperback, 366 pages
Publisher: Orchard Publications
Publication Date: 2001-10


Reviews :

    This text provides complete, clear, and detailed explanations of the principal numerical analysis methods and well known functions used in science and engineering. These are illustrated with many practical examples. It includes the following chapters:

o Introduction to MATLAB
o Root Approximations and Partial Fraction Expansion
o Sinusoids and Complex Numbers
o Matrices and Determinants
o Review of Differential Equations
o Power Series
o Linear and Parabolic Regression
o Solution of Differential Equations by Numerical Methods
o Integration by Numerical Methods
o Difference Equations
o Gamma & Beta Functions and Distributions
o Bessel, Legendre, and Chebyshev Polynomials
o Optimization Methods

Each chapter contains numerous practical applications supplemented with detailed instructions for using MATLAB® and/or Microsoft Excel® to obtain accurate and quick solutions....

Authors: Michael D. Ayers.
Paperback, 282 pages
Publisher: Peter Lang Publishing
Publication Date: 2006-01-31


Reviews :

    Since the mass proliferation of the Internet, music has been the one art form that has seen the most attention online. This volume culls together essays that examine the cultural aspects of music existing online. More than just the notion that "people download," Cybersounds is the first collection that critically looks at this issue, ultimately presenting new ideas and directions for exploring this field....

Authors: David E. Lundstrom.
Hardcover, 227 pages
Publisher: MIT Press (MA)
Publication Date: 1987-09


Reviews :

    1988 IEEE-USAB Award for Distinguished Literary Contributions Furthering Public Understanding of the Profession.

In this personal memoir, electrical engineer David Lundstrom recalls the heyday of early computing—the rise of Control Data out of the Univac division of Sperry Rand, such milestone computer systems as the Univac and the Naval Tactical Data System the exploits of CDC's top designer Seymour Cray, and the gradual corporate shift from the exciting and technically interesting world of computer design to internal politics and clumsy bureaucracy.

David E. Lundstrom's career spanned 30 years with Sperry Rand Corp. (now a division of Unisys Corp.) and Control Data Corporation....

Authors:
Hardcover, 528 pages
Publisher: The MIT Press
Publication Date: 2000-08-07
Edition: 1st

Reviews :

    This groundbreaking book charts the origins and spread of the systems movement....

Authors: Andrew McMichael. F. Andrew Mcmichael.
Paperback, 82 pages
Publisher: Harlan Davidson
Publication Date: 2005-01-30


Reviews :

    Brief student guide on how the internet developed and how to use it as a research tool for history subjects....

Authors: Colin Bennett. Charles Raab.
Paperback, 382 pages
Publisher: The MIT Press
Publication Date: 2006-05-16


Reviews :

    Privacy protection, according to Colin Bennett and Charles Raab, involves politics and public policy as much as it does law and technology. Moreover, the protection of our personal information in a globalized, borderless world means that privacy-related policies are inextricably interdependent. In this updated paperback edition of The Governance of Privacy Bennett and Raab analyze a broad range of privacy policy instruments available to contemporary advanced industrial states, from government regulations and transnational regimes to self-regulation and privacy-enhancing technologies. They consider two possible dynamics of privacy regulation—a "race to the bottom," with competitive deregulation by countries eager to attract global investment in information technology, versus "a race to the top," with the progressive establishment of global privacy standards.

Bennett and Raab begin by discussing the goals of privacy protection, the liberal and individualist assumptions behind it, and the neglected relationship between privacy and social equity. They describe and evaluate different policy instruments, including the important 1995 Directive on Data Protection from the European Union, as well as the general efficacy of the "top-down" statutory approach and self-regulatory and technological alternatives to it. They evaluate the interrelationships of these policy instruments and their position in a global framework of regulation and policy by state and non-state actors. And finally, they consider whether all of this policy activity at international, national, and corporate levels necessarily means higher levels of privacy protection....