Computers

Intelligence services, government administrations, businesses, and a growing majority of the population are hooked on the idea that big data can reveal patterns and correlations in everyday life. Initiated by software engineers and carried out through algorithms, the mining of big data has sparked a silent revolution. But algorithmic analysis and data mining are not simply byproducts of media development or the logical consequences of computation. They are the radicalization of the Enlightenment's quest for knowledge and progress. Data Love argues that the "cold civil war" of big data is taking place not among citizens or between the citizen and government but within each of us.

Roberto Simanowski elaborates on the changes data love has brought to the human condition while exploring the entanglements of those who—out of stinginess, convenience, ignorance, narcissism, or passion—contribute to the amassing of ever more data about their lives, leading to the statistical evaluation and individual profiling of their selves. Writing from a philosophical standpoint, Simanowski illustrates the social implications of technological development and retrieves the concepts, events, and cultural artifacts of past centuries to help decode the programming of our present.

Intelligence services, government administrations, businesses, and a growing majority of the population are hooked on the idea that big data can reveal patterns and correlations in everyday life. Initiated by software engineers and carried out through algorithms, the mining of big data has sparked a silent revolution. But algorithmic analysis and data mining are not simply byproducts of media development or the logical consequences of computation. They are the radicalization of the Enlightenment's quest for knowledge and progress. Data Love argues that the "cold civil war" of big data is taking place not among citizens or between the citizen and government but within each of us.

Roberto Simanowski elaborates on the changes data love has brought to the human condition while exploring the entanglements of those who—out of stinginess, convenience, ignorance, narcissism, or passion—contribute to the amassing of ever more data about their lives, leading to the statistical evaluation and individual profiling of their selves. Writing from a philosophical standpoint, Simanowski illustrates the social implications of technological development and retrieves the concepts, events, and cultural artifacts of past centuries to help decode the programming of our present.

We are crossing a new frontier in the evolution of computing and entering the era of cognitive systems. The victory of IBM's Watson on the television quiz show Jeopardy! revealed how scientists and engineers at IBM and elsewhere are pushing the boundaries of science and technology to create machines that sense, learn, reason, and interact with people in new ways to provide insight and advice.

In Smart Machines, John E. Kelly III, director of IBM Research, and Steve Hamm, a writer at IBM and a former business and technology journalist, introduce the fascinating world of "cognitive systems" to general audiences and provide a window into the future of computing. Cognitive systems promise to penetrate complexity and assist people and organizations in better decision making. They can help doctors evaluate and treat patients, augment the ways we see, anticipate major weather events, and contribute to smarter urban planning. Kelly and Hamm's comprehensive perspective describes this technology inside and out and explains how it will help us conquer the harnessing and understanding of "big data," one of the major computing challenges facing businesses and governments in the coming decades. Absorbing and impassioned, their book will inspire governments, academics, and the global tech industry to work together to power this exciting wave in innovation.

Now more than ever, content must be visual if it is to travel far. Readers everywhere are overwhelmed with a flow of data, news, and text. Visuals can cut through the noise and make it easier for readers to recognize and recall information. Yet many researchers were never taught how to present their work visually.

This book details essential strategies to create more effective data visualizations. Jonathan Schwabish walks readers through the steps of creating better graphs and how to move beyond simple line, bar, and pie charts. Through more than five hundred examples, he demonstrates the do’s and don’ts of data visualization, the principles of visual perception, and how to make subjective style decisions around a chart’s design. Schwabish surveys more than eighty visualization types, from histograms to horizon charts, ridgeline plots to choropleth maps, and explains how each has its place in the visual toolkit. It might seem intimidating, but everyone can learn how to create compelling, effective data visualizations. This book will guide you as you define your audience and goals, choose the graph that best fits for your data, and clearly communicate your message.

From the ads that track us to the maps that guide us, the twenty-first century runs on code. The business world is no different. Programming has become one of the fastest-growing topics at business schools around the world. An increasing number of MBAs are choosing to pursue careers in tech. For them and other professionals, having some basic coding knowledge is a must.

This book is an introduction to programming with Python for MBA students and others in business positions who need a crash course. One of the most popular programming languages, Python is used for tasks such as building and running websites, data analysis, machine learning, and natural-language processing. Drawing on years of experience providing instruction in this material at Columbia Business School as well as extensive backgrounds in technology, entrepreneurship, and consulting, Mattan Griffel and Daniel Guetta teach the basics of programming from scratch. Beginning with fundamentals such as variables, strings, lists, and functions, they build up to data analytics and practical ways to derive value from large and complex datasets. They focus on business use cases throughout, using the real-world example of a major restaurant chain to offer a concrete look at what Python can do. Written for business students with no previous coding experience and those in business roles that include coding or working with coding teams, Python for MBAs is an indispensable introduction to a versatile and powerful programming language.

From the ads that track us to the maps that guide us, the twenty-first century runs on code. The business world is no different. Programming has become one of the fastest-growing topics at business schools around the world. An increasing number of MBAs are choosing to pursue careers in tech. For them and other professionals, having some basic coding knowledge is a must.

This book is an introduction to programming with Python for MBA students and others in business positions who need a crash course. One of the most popular programming languages, Python is used for tasks such as building and running websites, data analysis, machine learning, and natural-language processing. Drawing on years of experience providing instruction in this material at Columbia Business School as well as extensive backgrounds in technology, entrepreneurship, and consulting, Mattan Griffel and Daniel Guetta teach the basics of programming from scratch. Beginning with fundamentals such as variables, strings, lists, and functions, they build up to data analytics and practical ways to derive value from large and complex datasets. They focus on business use cases throughout, using the real-world example of a major restaurant chain to offer a concrete look at what Python can do. Written for business students with no previous coding experience and those in business roles that include coding or working with coding teams, Python for MBAs is an indispensable introduction to a versatile and powerful programming language.

Now two decades old, podcasting is an exuberant medium where new voices can be found every day. As a powerful communications tool that is largely unregulated and unusually accessible, this influential medium is attracting scholarly scrutiny across a range of fields, from media and communications to history, criminology, and gender studies. Hailed for intimacy and authenticity in an age of mistrust and disinformation, podcasts have developed fresh models for storytelling, entertainment, and the casual imparting of knowledge. Podcast hosts have forged strong parasocial relationships that attract advertisers, brands, and major platforms, but can also be leveraged for community, niche, and public-interest purposes.

In The Power of Podcasting, award-winning narrative podcast producer and leading international audio scholar Siobhán McHugh dissects the aesthetics and appeal of podcasts and reveals the remarkable power of the audio medium to build empathy and connection via voice and sound. Drawing on internationally acclaimed podcasts she helped produce (The Greatest Menace, The Last Voyage of the Pong Su, Phoebe’s Fall), she blends practical insights into making complex narrative podcasts and chatcasts or conversational shows with critical analysis of the art and history of audio storytelling. She also surveys the emerging canon of podcast formats. Grounded in concepts from the affective power of voice to the choreography of sound and packed with case studies and insider tips from McHugh’s decades of experience, this richly storied book immerses readers in the enthralling possibilities of the world of sound.

Winner, 2023 Lewis Mumford Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Technics, Media Ecology Association

Although virtual reality promises to immerse a person in another world, its true power lies in its ability to sever a person’s spatial situatedness in this one. This is especially clear in Japan, where the VR headset has been embraced as a way to block off existing social environments and reroute perception into more malleable virtual platforms. Is immersion just another name for enclosure?

In this groundbreaking analysis of virtual reality, Paul Roquet uncovers how the technology is reshaping the politics of labor, gender, home, and nation. He examines how VR in Japan diverged from American militarism and techno-utopian visions and became a tool for renegotiating personal space. Individuals turned to the VR headset to immerse themselves in three-dimensional worlds drawn from manga, video games, and genre literature. The Japanese government promised VR-operated robots would enable a new era of remote work, targeting those who could not otherwise leave home. Middle-aged men and corporate brands used VR to reimagine themselves through the virtual bodies of anime-styled teenage girls. At a time when digital platforms continue to encroach on everyday life, The Immersive Enclosure takes a critical look at these attempts to jettison existing social realities and offers a bold new approach for understanding the media environments to come.

Winner, 2023 Lewis Mumford Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Technics, Media Ecology Association

Although virtual reality promises to immerse a person in another world, its true power lies in its ability to sever a person’s spatial situatedness in this one. This is especially clear in Japan, where the VR headset has been embraced as a way to block off existing social environments and reroute perception into more malleable virtual platforms. Is immersion just another name for enclosure?

In this groundbreaking analysis of virtual reality, Paul Roquet uncovers how the technology is reshaping the politics of labor, gender, home, and nation. He examines how VR in Japan diverged from American militarism and techno-utopian visions and became a tool for renegotiating personal space. Individuals turned to the VR headset to immerse themselves in three-dimensional worlds drawn from manga, video games, and genre literature. The Japanese government promised VR-operated robots would enable a new era of remote work, targeting those who could not otherwise leave home. Middle-aged men and corporate brands used VR to reimagine themselves through the virtual bodies of anime-styled teenage girls. At a time when digital platforms continue to encroach on everyday life, The Immersive Enclosure takes a critical look at these attempts to jettison existing social realities and offers a bold new approach for understanding the media environments to come.

Now two decades old, podcasting is an exuberant medium where new voices can be found every day. As a powerful communications tool that is largely unregulated and unusually accessible, this influential medium is attracting scholarly scrutiny across a range of fields, from media and communications to history, criminology, and gender studies. Hailed for intimacy and authenticity in an age of mistrust and disinformation, podcasts have developed fresh models for storytelling, entertainment, and the casual imparting of knowledge. Podcast hosts have forged strong parasocial relationships that attract advertisers, brands, and major platforms, but can also be leveraged for community, niche, and public-interest purposes.

In The Power of Podcasting, award-winning narrative podcast producer and leading international audio scholar Siobhán McHugh dissects the aesthetics and appeal of podcasts and reveals the remarkable power of the audio medium to build empathy and connection via voice and sound. Drawing on internationally acclaimed podcasts she helped produce (The Greatest Menace, The Last Voyage of the Pong Su, Phoebe’s Fall), she blends practical insights into making complex narrative podcasts and chatcasts or conversational shows with critical analysis of the art and history of audio storytelling. She also surveys the emerging canon of podcast formats. Grounded in concepts from the affective power of voice to the choreography of sound and packed with case studies and insider tips from McHugh’s decades of experience, this richly storied book immerses readers in the enthralling possibilities of the world of sound.

Bronze Medal Winner, 2024 Axiom Business Book Award, Emerging Trends / AI

If you want to win an election, improve the health of a city, or thrill your customers, you’re going to need precision systems—the highly engineered working arrangements of teams, processes, and technologies that put data and AI to work creating the change that leaders want, exactly how they want it. Big Tech firms like Amazon, Google, Apple, and Facebook have mastered their own precision systems, building trillion-dollar businesses using data-driven tools from mass-market “nudges” to industrial-grade recommendation systems.

Precisely is the playbook for the rest of us. Zachary Tumin and Madeleine Want show how leaders in every domain are taking real-time precision systems into the marketplace, the political race, and the fight for health—from New York-Presbyterian Hospital to the New York Times, the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens to BNSF Railroad, the Biden-Harris campaign to the NYPD—to reveal elusive patterns, perform a repetitive task, run a play, or tailor a message, one at a time or by the millions.

Precisely provides insight that will help leaders choose the system that’s right for them, decide which problem to tackle first, sell the importance of precision to stakeholders, power-up the people and the technology, and accomplish change that delivers precisely what’s needed every time—and do it all responsibly.

Whether you are a newly minted MBA or a project manager at a Fortune 500 company, data science will play a major role in your career. Knowing how to communicate effectively with data scientists in order to obtain maximum value from their expertise is essential. This book is a compelling and comprehensive guide to data science, emphasizing its real-world business applications and focusing on how to collaborate productively with data science teams.

Taking an engaging narrative approach, Winning with Data Science covers the fundamental concepts without getting bogged down in complex equations or programming languages. It provides clear explanations of key terms, tools, and techniques, illustrated through practical examples. The book follows the stories of Kamala and Steve, two professionals who need to collaborate with data science teams to achieve their business goals. Howard Steven Friedman and Akshay Swaminathan walk readers through each step of managing a data science project, from understanding the different roles on a data science team to identifying the right software. They equip readers with critical questions to ask data analysts, statisticians, data scientists, and other technical experts to avoid wasting time and money. Winning with Data Science is a must-read for anyone who works with data science teams or is interested in the practical side of the subject.