The Computer Revolution PDF Download

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309062780
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
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.

Author: Steven Levy
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
ISBN: 1449393748
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
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.

Author: Daniel E. Sichel
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815723539
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 165

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Book Description
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 s

Author: Neil Gershenfeld
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0786722045
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
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.

Author: John M. Dunn
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781560068488
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 118

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Book Description
Explores the history of computers and how they have changed communications world-wide.

Author: Benjamin B. Wells
Publisher: Nova Publishers
ISBN: 9781560724988
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
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.

Author: Theodor H. Nelson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Author: Edmund Callis Berkeley
Publisher: Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday
ISBN:
Category : Information storage and retrieval systems
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Author: Barrie Sherman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN:
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 428

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Book Description
A revolution has taken place. A technical revolution which pervades every aspect of life: work, leisure, the office, and home. Despite the fact that few areas of life remain untouched by this phenomenon, there is still a large portion of the population who are unaware of its enormity. This book looks at the impact of computers on society, particularly industrialized societies, and asks vital questions: who controls the computers and their systems; who benefits, who should adapt--society or the system--and are computers a force for good or evil? The computer revolution is in its infancy, the consequences are still unknown. But the future will be dominated by, and will depend upon, the computer. And more importantly, the society that puts it to use.

Author: Nigel Hawkes
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780500100097
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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