This annual report examines the key trends and developments -- most notably, the demise of Borders -- that shaped the 2011 computer book market.

An illustrated journey through 250 milestones in computer science, from the ancient abacus to Boolean algebra, GPS, and social media. With 250 illustrated landmark inventions, publications, and events—encompassing everything from ancient record-keeping devices to the latest computing technologies—The Computer Book takes a chronological journey through the history and future of computer science. Two expert authors, with decades of experience working in computer research and innovation, explore topics including: the Sumerian abacus * the first spam message * Morse code * cryptography * early computers * Isaac Asimov’s laws of robotics * UNIX and early programming languages * movies * video games * mainframes * minis and micros * hacking * virtual reality * and more “What a delight! A fast trip through the computing landscape in the company of friendly tour guides who know the history.” —Harry Lewis, Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science, Harvard University

“A beautifully written journey into the mechanics of the world of the cell, and even beyond, exploring the analogy with computers in a surprising way” (Denis Noble, author of Dance to the Tune of Life). How does a single-cell creature, such as an amoeba, lead such a sophisticated life? How does it hunt living prey, respond to lights, sounds, and smells, and display complex sequences of movements without the benefit of a nervous system? This book offers a startling and original answer. In clear, jargon-free language, Dennis Bray taps the findings from the discipline of systems biology to show that the internal chemistry of living cells is a form of computation. Cells are built out of molecular circuits that perform logical operations, as electronic devices do, but with unique properties. Bray argues that the computational juice of cells provides the basis for all distinctive properties of living systems: it allows organisms to embody in their internal structure an image of the world, and this accounts for their adaptability, responsiveness, and intelligence. In Wetware, Bray offers imaginative, wide-ranging, and perceptive critiques of robotics and complexity theory, as well as many entertaining and telling anecdotes. For the general reader, the practicing scientist, and all others with an interest in the nature of life, this book is an exciting portal to some of biology’s latest discoveries and ideas. “Drawing on the similarities between Pac-Man and an amoeba and efforts to model the human brain, this absorbing read shows that biologists and engineers have a lot to learn from working together.” —Discover magazine “Wetware will get the reader thinking.” —Science magazine

This edition reflects the latest networking technologies with a special emphasis on wireless networking, including 802.11, 802.16, Bluetooth, and 3G cellular, paired with fixed-network coverage of ADSL, Internet over cable, gigabit Ethernet, MPLS, and peer-to-peer networks. It incorporates new coverage on 3G mobile phone networks, Fiber to the Home, RFID, delay-tolerant networks, and 802.11 security, in addition to expanded material on Internet routing, multicasting, congestion control, quality of service, real-time transport, and content distribution.

There is intense interest in computer games. A total of 65 percent of all American households play computer games, and sales of such games increased 22.9 percent last year. The average amount of game playing time was found to be 13.2 hours per week. The popularity and market success of games is evident from both the increased earnings from games, over $7 Billion in 2005, and from the fact that over 200 academic institutions worldwide now offer game related programs of study. In view of the intense interest in computer games educators and trainers, in business, industry, the government, and the military would like to use computer games to improve the delivery of instruction. Computer Games and Instruction is intended for these educators and trainers. It reviews the research evidence supporting use of computer games, for instruction, and also reviews the history of games in general, in education, and by the military. In addition chapters examine gender differences in game use, and the implications of games for use by lower socio-economic students, for students’ reading, and for contemporary theories of instruction. Finally, well known scholars of games will respond to the evidence reviewed.

In modern computing a program is usually distributed among several processes. The fundamental challenge when developing reliable and secure distributed programs is to support the cooperation of processes required to execute a common task, even when some of these processes fail. Failures may range from crashes to adversarial attacks by malicious processes. Cachin, Guerraoui, and Rodrigues present an introductory description of fundamental distributed programming abstractions together with algorithms to implement them in distributed systems, where processes are subject to crashes and malicious attacks. The authors follow an incremental approach by first introducing basic abstractions in simple distributed environments, before moving to more sophisticated abstractions and more challenging environments. Each core chapter is devoted to one topic, covering reliable broadcast, shared memory, consensus, and extensions of consensus. For every topic, many exercises and their solutions enhance the understanding This book represents the second edition of "Introduction to Reliable Distributed Programming". Its scope has been extended to include security against malicious actions by non-cooperating processes. This important domain has become widely known under the name "Byzantine fault-tolerance".