Now available in two versions rather than three, this introduction to computers book is one that users will engage with -- maintaining the encyclopedic approach in the popular magazine style. It is refreshing, accurate, and easy to learn from-written to today's reader. The Eighth Edition moves the emphasis to connectivity and includes loads of new research to ensure that the statistics in the book are current. This edition emphasizes emerging technologies while de-emphasizing older technologies. The Complete version is chapters 10-14 of the Introductory version (with one Spotlight at the end on Emerging Technologies). Covers Careers and Certification, Programming, Databases and Information Systems, Systems Analysis and Design, and Enterprise Computing. For anyone wanting a basic knowledge of computers to apply to their jobs or lives.

Now available in two versions rather than three, this introduction to computers book is one that users will engage with -- maintaining the encyclopedic approach in the popular magazine style. It is refreshing, accurate, and easy to learn from-written to today's reader. The Eighth Edition moves the emphasis to connectivity and includes loads of new research to ensure that the statistics in the book are current. This edition emphasizes emerging technologies while de-emphasizing older technologies. The Introductory version is chapters 1-9 (with a Spotlight following each of chapters 1-7). Covers such topics as: Computers & Ethics, Internet/Web, E-commerce, Wired and Wireless Communications, Home Networks, System Software, File Management, Application Software, Microsoft Office, Inside the System Unit, Buying and Upgrading, Input, Output, and Storage, Multimedia Devices, Networks, and Privacy and Security. For anyone wanting a basic knowledge of computers to apply to their jobs or lives.

As we approach a great turning point in history when technology is poised to redefine what it means to be human, The Fourth Age offers fascinating insight into AI, robotics, and their extraordinary implications for our species. “If you only read just one book about the AI revolution, make it this one” (John Mackey, cofounder and CEO, Whole Foods Market). In The Fourth Age, Byron Reese makes the case that technology has reshaped humanity just three times in history: 100,000 years ago, we harnessed fire, which led to language; 10,000 years ago, we developed agriculture, which led to cities and warfare; 5,000 years ago, we invented the wheel and writing, which lead to the nation state. We are now on the doorstep of a fourth change brought about by two technologies: AI and robotics. “Timely, highly informative, and certainly optimistic” (Booklist), The Fourth Age provides an essential background on how we got to this point, and how—rather than what—we should think about the topics we’ll soon all be facing: machine consciousness, automation, changes in employment, creative computers, radical life extension, artificial life, AI ethics, the future of warfare, superintelligence, and the implications of extreme prosperity. By asking questions like “Are you a machine?” and “Could a computer feel anything?”, Reese leads you through a discussion along the cutting edge in robotics and AI, and provides a framework by which we can all understand, discuss, and act on the issues of the Fourth Age and how they’ll transform humanity.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Celebrated futurist Ray Kurzweil, hailed by Bill Gates as “the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence,” presents an “elaborate, smart, and persuasive” (The Boston Globe) view of the future course of human development. “Artfully envisions a breathtakingly better world.”—Los Angeles Times “Startling in scope and bravado.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times “An important book.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer At the onset of the twenty-first century, humanity stands on the verge of the most transforming and thrilling period in its history. It will be an era in which the very nature of what it means to be human will be both enriched and challenged as our species breaks the shackles of its genetic legacy and achieves inconceivable heights of intelligence, material progress, and longevity. While the social and philosophical ramifications of these changes will be profound, and the threats they pose considerable, The Singularity Is Near presents a radical and optimistic view of the coming age that is both a dramatic culmination of centuries of technological ingenuity and a genuinely inspiring vision of our ultimate destiny.

Written to provide all readers with an opportunity to learn and demonstrate computer and Internet literacy. Computer Literary for IC3 was written to align with a certification called "Internet and Computing Core Certification (IC3)". This certification is for users who want to demonstrate critical computer and Internet skills valued in today's academic and professional environments. The Computer Literacy for IC3 text is written to meet the certification standards and provide readers with a broad understanding of the key components of computer literacy in order to prepare for the exam. This certification has 3 units: * Unit 1: Computing Fundamentals (computer concepts) * Unit 2: Using Productivity Software * Unit 3: Living Online (the Internet) Each of these units is available as a separate Computer Literacy for IC3 text. This text contains: Unit 1: Computing Fundamentals and covers basic computer concepts including computer hardware, computer software, and using an operating system. The second edition of Computer Literacy for IC3 has been revised to keep up with the IC3 program's evolution, which reflects the recent changes in computers and technology. Instead of publishing one large, comprehensive text, the three units are now available as separate, smaller texts.

Electric Dreams turns to the past to trace the cultural history of computers. Ted Friedman charts the struggles to define the meanings of these powerful machines over more than a century, from the failure of Charles Babbage’s “difference engine” in the nineteenth century to contemporary struggles over file swapping, open source software, and the future of online journalism. To reveal the hopes and fears inspired by computers, Electric Dreams examines a wide range of texts, including films, advertisements, novels, magazines, computer games, blogs, and even operating systems. Electric Dreams argues that the debates over computers are critically important because they are how Americans talk about the future. In a society that in so many ways has given up on imagining anything better than multinational capitalism, cyberculture offers room to dream of different kinds of tomorrow.