About this product: "More than any thing else technology creates our world. It creates our wealth, our economy, our very way of being," says W. Brian Arthur. Yet, until now the major questions of technology have gone unanswered. Where do new technologies come from -- how exactly does invention work? What constitutes innovation, and how is it achieved? Why are certain regions -- Cambridge, England, in the 1920s and Silicon Valley today -- hotbeds of innovation, while others languish? Does technology, like biological life, evolve? How do new industries, and the economy itself, emerge from technologies? In this groundbreaking work, pioneering technology thinker and economist W. Brian Arthur sets forth a boldly original way of thinking about technology that gives answers to these questions.
The Nature of Technology is an elegant and powerful theory of technology's origins and evolution. It achieves for the progress of technology what Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions did for scientific progress. Arthur explains how transformative new technologies arise and how innovation really works. Conventional thinking ascribes the invention of technologies to "thinking outside the box," or vaguely to genius or creativity, but Arthur shows that such explanations are inadequate. Rather, technologies are put together from pieces -- themselves technologies -- that already exist. Technologies therefore share common ancestries and combine, morph, and combine again to create further technologies. Technology evolves much as a coral reef builds itself from activities of small organisms -- it creates itself from itself; all technologies are descended from earlier technologies.
Drawing on a wealth of examples, from historical inventions to the high-tech wonders of today, and writing in wonder fully engaging and clear prose, Arthur takes us on a mind-opening journey that will change the way we think about technology and how it structures our lives.
About this product: There’s never been a better time to “be prepared.” Matthew Stein’s comprehensive primer on sustainable living skills—from food and water to shelter and energy to first-aid and crisis-management skills—prepares you to embark on the path toward sustainability. But unlike any other book, Stein not only shows you how to live “green” in seemingly stable times, but to live in the face of potential disasters, lasting days or years, coming in the form of social upheaval, economic meltdown, or environmental catastrophe.
When Technology Fails covers the gamut. You’ll learn how to start a fire and keep warm if you’ve been left temporarily homeless, as well as the basics of installing a renewable energy system for your home or business. You’ll learn how to find and sterilize water in the face of utility failure, as well as practical information for dealing with water-quality issues even when the public tap water is still flowing. You’ll learn alternative techniques for healing equally suited to an era of profit-driven malpractice as to situations of social calamity. Each chapter (a survey of the risks to the status quo; supplies and preparation for short- and long-term emergencies; emergency measures for survival; water; food; shelter; clothing; first aid, low-tech medicine, and healing; energy, heat, and power; metalworking; utensils and storage; low-tech chemistry; and engineering, machines, and materials) offers the same approach, describing skills for self-reliance in good times and bad.Fully revised and expanded—the first edition was written pre-9/11 and pre-Katrina, when few Americans took the risk of social disruption seriously—When Technology Fails ends on a positive, proactive note with a new chapter on "Making the Shift to Sustainability," which offers practical suggestions for changing our world on personal, community and global levels.
About this product: Corporate executives are struggling with a new trend: people using online social technologies (blogs, social networking sites, YouTube, podcasts) to discuss products and companies, write their own news, and find their own deals. This groundswell is global, it s unstoppable, it affects every industry and it s utterly foreign to the powerful companies running things now.
When consumers you ve never met are rating your company s products in public forums with which you have no experience or influence, your company is vulnerable. In Groundswell, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff of Forrester, Inc. explain how to turn this threat into an opportunity.
Using tools and data straight from Forrester, you ll learn how to:
-Evaluate new social technologies as they emerge
-Determine how different groups of consumers are participating in social technology arenas
-Apply a four-step process for formulating your future strategy
-Build social technologies into your business including monitoring your brand value, talking with the groundswell through marketing and PR campaigns, and energizing your best customers to recruit their peers
Timely and insightful, this book is required reading for executives seeking to protect and strengthen their company s public image.
"Groundswell is jammed with big ideas, useful stories, and quotable stats. This is the new industrial revolution. Are you on board?"
-Seth Godin, author, Meatball Sundae
"This book will rock your world, if social technology hasn't rocked it already. It's a tsunami of unstoppable force. Amazon, Procter & Gamble, Facebook, Google, and Dell are profiting from the crest of the wave. Are you? Li and Bernoff are the apostles of the tsunami. This book will be your bible."
-Scott Cook, Founder and Chairman of the Executive Committee, Intuit
Groundswell provides practical advice on how to stay nimble and flexible in an ever-morphing digital world. Enabling your company to respond to change quickly especially when talking to and supporting your consumers is essential for business success.
-Cathie Black, President, Hearst Magazines
"The first phase of the Internet was about getting everyone connected. In this next phase, which changes the way we work, live, play, and learn, we re starting to realize the value of those connections as well as the new communications and experiences those interactions lead to the human network. Groundswell effectively documents this shift and underscores the opportunities available to all from this major market transition."
-John T. Chambers, Chairman and CEO, Cisco
"Heed the Groundswell! It's critical reading and helped us master the new dynamics of social media."
-Christina Norman, President, MTV
"Groundswell is a comprehensive look at the tidal wave of change engulfing marketers. Nobody should attempt to engage the newly empowered and emboldened consumer without first hearing what Li and Bernoff have to say on the subject."
-Clark Kokich, CEO, Avenue A | Razorfish
"Social technologies and the groundswell impact every business and organization worldwide. Li and Bernoff have written an insightful book that takes a refreshing research-driven approach to helping businesses transform themselves and successfully navigate this new dynamic landscape."
-Steve Rubel, Senior Vice President, Edelman Digital, and columnist for Advertising Age
About this product: This book is an excellent transitional text that links instructional strategies that work (i.e., produce improved student achievement) with practical uses of available technology. Too often, technology is considered a separate subject in K12 education. This book shows how technology supports and enhances sound instructional practices.
It is a must read for school technology directors and curriculum directors. Thanks to the REMCAM (Regional Educational Media Centers Association of Michigan) for recommending it.
Mastering Unreal Technology, Volume I: Introduction to Level Design with Unreal Engine 3 is your start-to-finish guide to modding and level design with the world’s hottest new gaming engine: Unreal Engine 3. Here’s everything you need to know to jumpstart your skills and create stunning new content and games for consoles and PCs alike! Your authors aren’t just the world’s #1 Unreal game development trainers: They’ve even built the training modules that shipped with Unreal Tournament 3: Limited Collector’s Edition. Now, working with the full cooperation of Unreal Engine 3’s creators, Epic Games, they introduce every facet of game development–from simple level creation to materials, lighting, and terrain...even advanced level optimization and streaming!
Packed with tips, hands-on tutorials, and expert techniques, Mastering Unreal Technology, Volume I is all you need to create levels that look spectacular and work brilliantly...levels that gamers just can’t stop playing!
You’ll find expert tips on
Understanding the game development process from start to finish
Planning projects for greater efficiency, faster delivery, and better quality
Crafting worlds with stunning beauty and clarity
Bringing amazing realism to characters, objects, and props
Making the most of Unreal Engine 3’s massively upgraded lighting system
Scripting complex gameplay quickly and easily with Unreal Kismet
Building animated game assets with Unreal Matinee
Testing game performance during live gameplay
Optimizing levels by improving the interaction between lights and surfaces
Using advanced level streaming to create vast, rich, highly playable levels
About this product: The digital revolution has hit education, with more and more classrooms plugged into the whole wired world. But are schools making the most of new technologies? Are they tapping into the learning potential of today s Firefox/Facebook/cell phone generation? Have schools fallen through the crack of the digital divide? In Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology, Allan Collins and Richard Halverson argue that the knowledge revolution has transformed our jobs, our homes, our lives, and therefore must also transform our schools. Much like after the school-reform movement of the industrial revolution, our society is again poised at the edge of radical change. To keep pace with a globalized technological culture, we must rethink how we educate the next generation or America will be left behind. This groundbreaking book offers a vision for the future of American education that goes well beyond the walls of the classroom to include online social networks, distance learning with anytime, anywhere access, digital home schooling models, video-game learning environments, and more.
In today’s technological age, computer literacy is important for everyone, and now learning the basics is easier than ever. A Computer Concepts Text Focused on Today’s Student! Technology in Action engages students by combining a unique teaching approach with rich companion media. The seventh edition has been updated to reflect the latest developments in computer technology. New interactive learning tools have also been added to enhance student engagement.
Student CD is included with every text, containing:
· Sound Bytes: Multimedia lessons that demystify computer concepts with audio and video presentations.
· Sound Byte Podcasts: The Sound Bytes are now also available as podcasts.
· Active Helpdesk Calls: Highly interactive, engaging, almost game-like media that places the student in the role of a helpdesk staffer answering computer technology questions from callers.
Why Computers Matter to You: Becoming Computer Literate; The History of the PC; Looking at Computers: Understanding the Parts; Using the Internet; Ethics; Application Software: Programs That Let You Work and Play; Using System Software: The Operating System, Utility Programs, and File Management; Understanding and Assessing Hardware; Networking and Security: Hackers and Viruses; Protecting Your Computer and Backing Up Your Data; Mobile Computing; Digital Entertainment; System Hardware
With an array of fun and engaging learning tools, Technology in Action teaches students computer fundamentals, from learning Microsoft Office to setting up their own home network.
Mastering Unreal Technology, Volume II: Advanced Level Design Concepts with Unreal Engine 3is your start-to-finish guide to state-of-the-art Unreal Tournament 3 modding and level design. Here’s everything you need to know to take your game design skills to the next level, creating content with breakthrough depth and interactivity! Your authors aren’t just the world’s #1 Unreal game development trainers: They’ve built the training mods that shipped with Unreal Tournament. Now, working with the full cooperation of Unreal Engine 3’s creators, Epic Games, they introduce innovative, pro-quality techniques you’ll find nowhere else: outstanding solutions for everything from particle effects to physics, materials to cinematics. Packed with tips, hands-on tutorials, and expert insight, Mastering Unreal Technology, Volume IIwill help you take Unreal Tournament 3 and Unreal Engine 3 to the limit...and then blow right by it!
You’ll find expert tips on
Creating advanced materials that leverage the full power of UnrealEd’s Material Editor
Bringing levels to life with objects affected by gravity, collisions, and player influence
Creating fire, smoke, sparks, and more with Unreal Engine 3’s particle effects system
Building custom user interfaces, including Heads-Up Displays (HUDs) that update constantly
Using SoundCues to mix, modulate, crossfade, and attenuate sounds
Generating real-time camera-based effects, including depth of field, motion blur, and color adjustment
Using post process effects to quickly transform a scene’s look and feel without changing existing materials or textures
Animating characters and vehicles that move with unprecedented realism
Creating in-game cinematics that develop your characters and move your story forward
About this product: Integration methods should be based in both learning theory and teaching practice. Integration should match specific teaching and learning needs. Old integration strategies are not necessarily bad; new strategies are not necessarily good. Using these three premises as a foundation, this book presents effective theory- and research-based strategies for integrating technology resources and technology-based methods into everyday classroom practices. It is written from the teacher's perspective, making it ideal for both novice and experienced computer users. Unique coverage of integrating technology into specific content areas in Part IV demonstrates how to use technology to teach language arts, social studies, science, math, music, art, phys ed/health, and special education, rather than just providing generic strategies. For practicing teachers and computer users.
About this product: Information is traveling faster and being shared by more individuals than ever before. Information Technology Project Management, Sixth Edition offers the "behind-the-scene" aspect of technology. Although project management has been an established field for many years, managing information technology requires ideas and information that go beyond standard project management. By weaving together theory and practice, this text presents an understandable, integrated view of the many concepts skills, tools, and techniques involved in project management. Because the project management field and the technology industry change rapidly, you cannot assume that what worked even five years ago is still the best approach today. This text provides up-to-date information on how good project management and effective use of software can help you manage projects, especially information technology projects. Information Technology Project Management, Sixth Edition, is still the only textbook to apply all nine project management knowledge areas—project integration, scope, time, cost, quality, human resource, communications, risk, and procurement management—and all five process groups—initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing—to information technology projects.
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