Showing titles in History & Culture

Brought to you by Penguin. Built of lightweight wood, powered by two growling Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, impossibly aerodynamic, headspinningly fast and armed to the teeth, the de Havilland Mosquito was the war-winning wonder that should never have existed: the aircraft the RAF didn't think it...

In contrast to the wave of noisy polemics around AI, AI For Good explores how, in practice, it can actually improve our lives and tells the stories of everyday citizens at the forefront of this new “AI entrepreneurship.” AI is often framed as a force of radical transformation, either...

How much should you pay for a return trip to the moon? How are Winnie the Pooh and the artificial heart related? Did teenagers exist before 1950? If not, who invented them? James May's 20th Century answers all these questions and more. In this exclusive download released to tie-in with the BBC...

Welcome to Essentials of AI for Beginners, your go-to guide for exploring AI technologies like Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Generative AI, and ChatGPT.

‘Laura Bates explains how they built the future – and forgot to put women in it’ CAITLIN MORAN 'Fascinating and essential... I urge you to read every syllable' JO BRAND ‘All men must read this book if they have any interest in a truly just, fair and equal society’ ROBIN INCE AI is here...

How AI Really Thinks takes you behind the screen and uncovers the ten core secrets that make modern artificial intelligence work. You’ll discover why data acts as AI’s fuel, how algorithms function as its rulebook, and how machines learn from examples the same way people learn from experience. You’ll explore the training methods that help AI recognise pictures and understand speech, and you’ll see how neural networks—loosely inspired by the human brain—allow AI to detect patterns far too complex for us to notice.

This book lavishly illustrates the first 50 years of Apple’s history through stunning, full-color photographs. Instant New York Times Bestseller In time for Apple’s 50th anniversary, CBS Sunday Morning correspondent David Pogue tells the iconic company’s entire life story: how it was born...

Brought to you by Penguin. We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don't know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our material...

Artificial intelligence is no longer confined to science fiction—it’s part of our everyday lives. From smartphone assistants and Netflix recommendations to medical diagnostics and fraud detection, AI is already transforming how we live, work, and connect. But what exactly is AI? How does it work? Can it think like us, or even replace us? And what does it mean for our future?

In this witty, often terrifying work of cultural criticism, Postman chronicles our transformation into a Technopoly: a society that no longer merely uses technology as a support system but instead is shaped by it. According to Postman, technology is rapidly gaining sovereignty over social institutions and national life to become self-justifying, self-perpetuating, and omnipresent. He warns that this will have radical consequences for the meanings of politics, art, religion, family, education, and more.

Brought to you by Penguin. Tony Fadell led the teams that created the iPod, iPhone and Nest Learning Thermostat and learned enough in 30+ years in Silicon Valley about leadership, design, startups, Apple, Google, decision-making, mentorship, devastating failure and unbelievable success to fill...

Although we usually think of technology as something unique to modern times, our ancestors began to create the first technologies millions of years ago in the form of prehistoric tools and weapons. Over time, eight key technologies gradually freed us from the limitations of our animal origins.

Brought to you by Penguin. An urgent, deeply researched reckoning with the role of tech in our classrooms -- from neuroscientist, researcher and former teacher, Dr Jared Cooney Horvath. Our children are struggling. Schools, once alive with deep learning born of human connection, are now...

A searing investigation into the child influencer industry and the perils of childhood internet fame, Like, Follow, Subscribe is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the costs of internet fame, and the ethics of online content. What is it like to grow up with a camera in your face...

In the 1940s, mathematicians set out to design computers that could act as ideal rational agents in the face of uncertainty. The Irrational Decision tells the story of how they settled on a peculiar mathematical definition of rationality in which every decision is a statistical question of risk. Benjamin Recht traces how this quantitative standard came to define our understanding of rationality, looking at the history of optimization, game theory, statistical testing, and machine learning.

Brought to you by Penguin. How a force that’s hard to name, but which we all feel, is reshaping what it means to be human In Against the Machine, “furiously gifted” (The Washington Post) novelist, poet, and essayist Paul Kingsnorth presents a wholly original—and terrifying—account of...

National Bestseller From the New York Times bestselling authors of Abundance, Bold, and The Future Is Faster Than You Think comes a bold exploration of what it means to stay human in a world where technology has granted us godlike power. In 1968, Stewart Brand declared: “We are as gods—and...

The dramatic, larger-than-life true story behind the founding of Oculus and its quest for virtual reality, by the bestselling author of Console Wars. From iconic books like Neuromancer to blockbuster films like The Matrix, virtual reality has long been hailed as the ultimate technology. But...

A New York Times Notable Book Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction A New York Times Bestseller Named a Best Book of the Year by Smithsonian, Scientific American, and Elle Winner of the Porchlight Business Book Award “A bestselling page-turner that has...

Eswar Prasad explains the world of finance is at the threshold of major disruption that will affect corporations, bankers, states, and indeed all of us. The transformation of money will fundamentally rewrite how ordinary people live. Above all, Prasad foresees the end of physical cash. The driving force won't be phones or credit cards but rather central banks, spurred by the emergence of cryptocurrencies to develop their own, more stable digital currencies.