Computer: A History of the Information Machine traces the history of the computer and shows how business and government were the first to explore its unlimited, information-processing potential. Old-fashioned entrepreneurship combined with scientific know-how inspired now famous computer engineers to create the technology that became IBM. Wartime needs drove the giant ENIAC, the first fully electronic computer. Later, the PC enabled modes of computing that liberated people from room-sized, mainframe computers. This third edition provides updated analysis on software and computer networking, including new material on the programming profession, social networking, and mobile computing. It expands its focus on the IT industry with fresh discussion on the rise of Google and Facebook as well as how powerful applications are changing the way we work, consume, learn, and socialize. Computer is an insightful look at the pace of technological advancement and the seamless way computers are integrated into the modern world. Through comprehensive history and accessible writing, Computer is perfect for courses on computer history, technology history, and information and society, as well as a range of courses in the fields of computer science, communications, sociology, and management.

This volume presents a timely overview of the latest BCI research, with contributions from many of the important research groups in the field.

ISBN 0314321519 LCCN 8629012.

The field of human development focuses on the growth and development of the human being including physical, social, psychological, and emotional development. Under the broad umbrella of the term human development you find countless topics that range from charting the emotional attachment of an infant to his or her parents and its long-term effects on well-being, media violence and adolescents′ behavior, or factors moderating the natural decline in physical and mental abilities associated with aging. The Encyclopedia of Human Development is the first comprehensive, authoritative, and informative reference work that presents state-of-the-art research and ready-to-use facts from the fields of psychology, individual and family studies, and education in a way that is not too technical. With more than 600 entries, this three-volume Encyclopedia covers topics as diverse as adolescence, cognitive development, education, family, gender differences, identity, longitudinal research, personality development, prenatal development, temperament, and more. Key Features Provides cross-disciplinary coverage, with contributions from experts in the fields of psychology, education, human development and family studies, and gerontology Highlights classic studies and theories and provides brief biographies of notable researchers and theorists Takes a lifespan approach by including several "anchor essays" that cover specific phases of development such as prenatal, infancy, childhood, adolescence, early and middle adulthood, later adulthood and aging Begins with an Introduction that details the scope, rationale, and audience for the work The cross-disciplinary field of human development is one that captures interest among and holds practical relevance for the general public as well as academia, therefore this engaging Encyclopedia will be a welcome addition to any academic or public library.

As millions of people have been exposed to computing through the tremendous growth of microcomputers, there has developed an increasing appreciation of the history of data processing, which dates back many decades before the arrival of the computer. Stretching back to at least the 1860s, such early technologies as adding machines, punch cards, and the office appliance industry are now being recognized for their place in the history of the information processing industry. This work brings together a comprehensive list of sources that offer a general introduction to the literature of the industry. Divided into nine chapters covering topics and historical periods, the bibliography provides an annotated list of published materials describing both the history of the industry and significant items of general interest. Each chapter is introduced with a short review of historically important issues and comments on the literature, and contains contemporary publications as well as more recent material. To give the work a continuing usefulness, ongoing publications, such as computer magazines, are highlighted. Entries are grouped under nearly 100 subheadings, covering such material as contemporary descriptions of hardware and software of the past, seminal technical papers, industry surveys, programming languages, significant individuals and companies, and the role of Japan and microcomputing. All citations are annotated with a brief summary of either the work's contents or its historical importance, while two indexes provide both subject references and author citations. This bibliography will be an important reference source for courses in the history of data processing and business history, and a useful addition to public, college, and university libraries.

Winner of the Association of American Publishers Professional and Scholarly Publishing Award for Computer Science Over the course of several decades, the Pentagon's Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) helped transform computing from a cumbersome enterprise based on batch processing to the instantly interactive, graphically rich, highly intelligent computing of today. With the purpose of improving command and control systems for the military, IPTO researchers strengthened time-sharing, laid the groundwork for graphics and parallel processing, contributed to the study of artificial intelligence, and developed the wide-area network that came to be known as the Internet. Transforming Computer Technology examines these and other developments at the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency in its heyday between 1962 and 1986. The authors show how Pentagon programs affected significant developments in both computer science and engineering. They analyze the management of the office, the origins and growth of important IPTO programs, and the interaction of the staff with the R & D community. They pay special attention to IPTO's role in executing research at the leading edge of computing and networking and in working with the military to transfer that research into practical use. And they show how, by the 1990s, the research results had been assimilated into systems both for the military and for civilian society.

An interdisciplinary team of scientists is presenting a new paradigm: all existing structures on earth are the consequence of information processing. Since these structures have been evolved over the last five billion years, information processing and its systems have an evolution.This is under consideration in the book. Starting with a basic paper which summarizes the essential hypotheses about the evolution of informaion processing systems, sixteen international scientists have tried to verify or falsify these hypothesises. This has been done at the physical, the chemical, the genetic, the neural, the social, the societal and the socio-technical level. Thus, the reader gets an insight into the recent status of research on the evolution of information processing systems. The papers are the result of an interdisciplinary project in which scientists of the classical disciplines have been invited to collaborate. Their inputs have been intensively discussed in a workshop. The book is the output of the workshop. The first goal of the bookis to give the reader an insight into basic principles about the evolution of information processing systems. This, however, leads directly to a very old and essential question: who is controlling the world, "matter" or an "immaterial intelligence"? Several authors of the papers are arguing that there is a basic concept of information processing in nature. This is the crucial process, which, however, needs a material basis. The reader has a chance to understand this paradigm as an approach which is valid for all levels of inorganic, organic and societal structures. This provocative concept is open to debate.