New Books in Technology
Episodes
Enter the Zuckerverse: On the Metaverse and its Corporatization
25 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The term “metaverse” was coined in a 1993 science fiction novel. Since then, it’s grown from a dystopian literary concept to a reality that corp...
Cassidy Puckett, "Redefining Geek: Bias and the Five Hidden Habits of Tech-Savvy Teens" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
25 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Picture a typical computer geek. Likely white, male, and someone you’d say has a “natural instinct” for technology. Yet, after six years teachin...
Alfie Bown, "Dream Lovers: The Gamification of Relationships" (Pluto Press, 2022)
24 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We are in the middle of a 'desirevolution' - a fundamental and political transformation of the way we desire as human beings. Perhaps as always, new t...
Brett Scott, "Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto, and the War for Our Wallets" (Harper Business, 2022)
24 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto, and the War for Our Wallets (Harper Business, 2022), Brett Scott tells an urgent and revelatory story about how ...
Gamify Everything: Turning Work Into Play . . . for Better and for Worse
24 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Setting goals for the new year? Learning a language? Going for a run? Delivering food? Picking packages off a warehouse shelf for delivery? There’s ...
Save the Whales: The Addictive Psychology Behind Video Games
23 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We’ll save the Moby Dick puns for the episode itself, but suffice it to say that sinister game developers are on a whale hunt. This episode, origina...
Ann Blair et al., "Information: A Historical Companion" (Princeton UP, 2021)
23 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Information is everywhere. We live in an “Information” Society. We can get more of it faster, quicker, and in more different shapes and sizes than...
Moral Kombat: How Mortal Kombat Caused Moral Outrage
22 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
You can learn much about a media and political culture by examining when it panics, and who it panics about. And we’ve always panicked about video g...
Postscript: How the Supreme Court Overturned a Century-Old Gun Law…and Changed American Jurisprudence
22 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s Postscript (a special series that allows scholars to comment on pressing contemporary issues) focuses on the US Supreme Court and the Seco...
Johanna Drucker, "Inventing the Alphabet: The Origins of Letters from Antiquity to the Present" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
17 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Inventing the Alphabet: The Origins of Letters from Antiquity to the Present (University of Chicago Press, 2022) by Dr. Johanna Drucker provides the ...
Paris Marx, "Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation" (Verso, 2022)
16 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation (Verso, 2022), Paris Marx identifies two convergent forces in...
The Future of Net Zero: A Discussion with Eric Lonergan
16 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
There is no shortage of words written about climate change and the goal of reaching net zero - but there is a shortage of practical suggestions about ...
Eswar S. Prasad, "The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance" (Harvard UP, 2021)
16 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution is Transforming Currencies and Finance (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2021) provides...
Made of Corn: How Genetically Modified Corn Changed Science, Academia and Indigenous Rights in Mexico (Part 2 of 2)
12 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This is part 2 of a 2-part series from Cited - the predecessor of Darts and Letters. For the final episode of our “Activism & Academia”-themed wee...
Modifying Maize: How Genetically Modified Corn Changed Science, Academia and Indigenous Rights in Mexico (Part 1 of 2)
11 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This is part 1 of a 2-part series from Cited - the predecessor of Darts and Letters. When genetically modified corn was found in the highlands of Mexi...
Christian Wolmar, "British Rail: A New History" (Michael Joseph, 2022)
11 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
You think you know British Rail. But you don't know the whole story. Now, award-winning writer Christian Wolmar provides a new perspective on national...
Minh-Ha T. Pham, "Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Social Media's Influence on Fashion, Ethics, and Property" (Duke UP, 2022)
10 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 2016, social media users in Thailand called out the Paris-based luxury fashion house Balenciaga for copying the popular Thai “rainbow bag,” usi...
Sébastien Philippe and Tomas Statius, "Toxique: Enquête sur les essais nucléaires français en Polynésie" (Companyédition PUF/Disclose, 2021)
08 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when you bring together an important collection of previously secret archival documents dealing with France's nuclear detonations in the ...
American Chernobyl, Part 2: The Most Poisonous Place in the USA
05 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Hanford is the most-polluted place in America. In our last episode, you heard about the nuclear plant's largely-forgotten history--how it poisoned the...
America's Chernobyl, Part 1: Living in a Poison Town
04 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Cited: What it means to live in a place where your home can give you cancer. Richland, Washington is a company town that sprang up ...
Ellis Jones, "DIY Music and the Politics of Social Media" (Bloomsbury, 2020)
03 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Since the 1970s, there has been a rich, global lineage of broadly guitar-based music scenes which have enacted a political critique of the commercial ...
Socialise the Series of Tubes: Toward a Democratic Internet
02 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Recently a major outage took nearly a third of Canada offline. No phone, no internet… even access to 911 got shut down in some places. So why does o...
Lost Utopias: A History of World’s Fairs
01 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Techno-utopianism is everywhere. It’s driven by a new tech-bro/crypto culture, supported by online hordes of true believers, and couched in philosop...
Stuart Ellis-Gorman, "The Medieval Crossbow: A Weapon Fit to Kill a King" (Pen & Sword Military, 2022)
28 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The crossbow is an iconic weapon of the Middle Ages and, alongside the longbow, one of the most effective ranged weapons of the pre-gunpowder era. Unf...
Nic Maclellan, "Grappling with the Bomb: Britain’s Pacific H-Bomb Tests" (ANU Press, 2017)
27 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Nic Maclellan's book Grappling with the Bomb: Britain’s Pacific H-Bomb Tests (ANU Press, 2017) is a history of Britain’s 1950s program to test t...
James Steinhoff, "Automation and Autonomy: Labour, Capital and Machines in the Artificial Intelligence Industry" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)
27 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Automation and Autonomy: Labour, Capital and Machines in the Artificial Intelligence Industry (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) argues that Marxist theory ...
Felix Schniz, "Genre and Video Game: Introducing an Impossible Taxonomy" (Springer, 2021)
26 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Felix Schniz's book Genre and Video Game: Introducing an Impossible Taxonomy (Genre und Videospiel: Einführung in eine unmögliche Taxonomie) expl...
Jason Resnikoff, "Labor's End: How the Promise of Automation Degraded Work" (U Illinois Press, 2021)
21 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Labor's End: How the Promise of Automation Degraded Work (U Illinois Press, 2021) traces the discourse around automation from its origins in the fact...
Lisa Jean Moore, "Our Transgenic Future: Spider Goats, Genetic Modification, and the Will to Change Nature" (NYU Press, 2022)
20 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The process of manipulating the genetic material of one animal to include the DNA of another creates a new transgenic organism. Several animals, notab...
Rachael Pells, "Genomics: How Genome Sequencing Will Change Healthcare" (Random House, 2022)
15 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Genome sequencing is one of the most exciting scientific breakthroughs of the past thirty years. But what precisely does it involve and how is it deve...
Nicole Erin Morse, "Selfie Aesthetics: Seeing Trans Feminist Futures in Self-Representational Art" (Duke UP, 2022)
13 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Selfie Aesthetics: Seeing Trans Feminist Futures in Self-Representational Art (Duke University Press, 2022) Nicole Erin Morse examines how trans...
Elena Conis, "How to Sell a Poison: The Rise, Fall, and Toxic Return of DDT" (Bold Type Books, 2022)
13 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The story of DDT as you’ve never heard it before: a fresh look at the much-maligned chemical compound as a cautionary tale of how powerful corporati...
Jamie Susskind, "The Digital Republic: On Freedom and Democracy in the 21st Century" (Pegasus Books, 2022)
11 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From one of the leading intellectuals of the digital age, The Digital Republic: On Freedom and Democracy in the 21st Century (Pegasus Books, 2022) ...
Trevor Boffone, "TikTok Cultures in the United States" (Routledge, 2022)
11 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Trevor Boffone's book TikTok Cultures in the United States (Routledge, 2022) examines the role of TikTok in US popular culture, paying close attenti...
Jayita Sarkar, "Ploughshares and Swords: India's Nuclear Program in the Global Cold War" (Cornell UP, 2022)
11 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ploughshares and Swords: India’s Nuclear Program in the Global Cold War (Cornell University Press, 2022) by Jayita Sarkar challenges this received ...
Jody Rosen, "Two Wheels Good: The History and Mystery of the Bicycle" (Crown, 2022)
08 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The bicycle is a vestige of the Victorian era, seemingly at odds with our age of smartphones and ride-sharing apps and driverless cars. Yet we live on...
Samuel Ulbricht, "Ethics of Computer Gaming: A Groundwork" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022)
08 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Samuel Ulbricht about his book Ethics of Computer Gaming: A Groundwork (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022). Despite the increasing number ...
Roberto J. González, "War Virtually: The Quest to Automate Conflict, Militarize Data, and Predict the Future" (U California Press, 2022)
01 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A critical look at how the US military is weaponizing technology and data for new kinds of warfare—and why we must resist. War Virtually: The Quest...
Mark Andrejevic, "Automated Media" (Routledge, 2019)
24 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this era of pervasive automation, Mark Andrejevic provides an original framework for tracing the logical trajectory of automated media and their so...
Jonathan Crary, "Scorched Earth: Beyond the Digital Age to a Post-Capitalist World" (Verso, 2022)
22 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this uncompromising essay, Jonathan Crary presents the obvious but unsayable reality: our ‘digital age’ is synonymous with the disastrous termi...
Drone Life
22 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Amy Gaeta uses the relationship between humans and technology, non-military use of drones being a prime example, to rethink concepts of passivity and ...
Artificial Intelligence with Chinese Characteristics
17 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What is artificial intelligence (AI) with Chinese characteristics? Why is the Chinese Government labelling AI as a matter of security? How has AI been...
David L. Sloss, "Tyrants on Twitter: Protecting Democracies from Information Warfare" (Stanford UP, 2022)
17 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram were first introduced to the public, their mission was simple: they were designed to help people become...
Andrew Simon, "Media of the Masses: Cassette Culture in Modern Egypt" (Stanford UP, 2022)
16 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Media of the Masses: Cassette Culture in Modern Egypt (Stanford UP, 2022) investigates the social life of an everyday technology—the cassette tape—...
Albert Folch, "Hidden in Plain Sight: The History, Science, and Engineering of Microfluidic Technology" (MIT Press, 2022)
15 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Hidden from view, microfluidics underlies a variety of devices that are essential to our lives, from inkjet printers to glucometers for the monitoring...
John Wills, "Gamer Nation: Video Games and American Culture" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2019)
15 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1975, design engineer Dave Nutting completed work on a new arcade machine. A version of Taito's Western Gun, a recent Japanese arcade machine, Nutt...
Gian Maria Campedelli, "Machine Learning for Criminology and Crime Research: At the Crossroads" (Routledge, 2022)
14 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Machine Learning for Criminology and Crime Research: At the Crossroads (Routledge, 2022) reviews the roots of the intersection between machine learn...
David B. Goldstein, "The End of Genetics: Designing Humanity's DNA" (Yale UP, 2022)
06 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Since 2010 it has been possible to determine a person's genetic makeup in a matter of days at an accessible cost for many millions of people. Along wi...
Thomas J. Misa, "Leonardo to the Internet: Technology and Culture from the Renaissance to the Present" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2022)
06 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“My underlying goal,” writes my guest Tom Misa, “has been to display the variety of technologies, to describe how they changed across time, an...
Shara Rambarran, "Virtual Music: Sound, Music, and Image in the Digital Era" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
03 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Virtuality has entered our lives making anything we desire possible. We are, as Gorillaz once sang, in an exciting age where 'the digital won't let [u...
Margie Meacham, "AI in Talent Development: Capitalize on the AI Revolution to Transform the Way You Work, Learn, and Live" (ASTD, 2020)
02 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In AI in Talent Development: Capitalize on the AI Revolution to Transform the Way You Work, Learn, and Live (ASTD, 2020), Margie Meacham describes t...
Jessamyn Abel, "Dream Super-Express: A Cultural History of the World's First Bullet Train" (Stanford UP, 2022)
02 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jessamyn Abel’s Dream Super-Express: A Cultural History of the World’s First Bullet Train (Stanford UP, 2022) is a history of Japan’s famous ...
Adam M. Romero, "Economic Poisoning: Industrial Waste and the Chemicalization of American Agriculture" (U California Press, 2021)
30 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The toxicity of pesticides to the environment and humans is often framed as an unfortunate effect of their benefits to agricultural production. In Ec...
Aniket Aga, "Genetically Modified Democracy: Transgenic Crops in Contemporary India" (Yale UP, 2022)
30 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How the debate over genetically modified crops in India is transforming science and politics Genetically modified or transgenic crops are controversia...
Should Scholars Trust Machine Translation of their Articles?
30 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Should academic scholars trust machine translation for the publication of their academic articles? In this episode, Avi Staiman and Ana Guerberof Aren...
Alice Dailey, "How to Do Things with Dead People: History, Technology, and Temporality from Shakespeare to Warhol" (Cornell UP, 2022)
20 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Alice Dailey’s How to Do Things with Dead People: History, Technology, and Temporality from Shakespeare to Warhol (Cornell University Press, 2022)...
Pandemic Perspectives 11: The Covid Pandemic and Learning about Learning
18 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this Pandemic Perspectives Podcast, Ideas Roadshow founder and host Howard Burton talks to renowned cognitive psychologist Stephen Kosslyn about h...
Elena Esposito, "Artificial Communication: How Algorithms Produce Social Intelligence" (MIT Press, 2022)
18 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Algorithms that work with deep learning and big data are getting so much better at doing so many things that it makes us uncomfortable. How can a devi...
Gijs Mom, "Globalizing Automobilism: Exuberance and the Emergence of Layered Mobility, 1900–1980" (Berghahn Books, 2020)
17 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Why has "car society" proven so durable, even in the face of mounting environmental and economic crises? In Globalizing Automobilism: Exuberance and ...
Simon Peter Rowberry, "Four Shades of Gray: The Amazon Kindle Platform" (MIT Press, 2022)
15 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Four Shades of Gray: The Amazon Kindle Platform (MIT Press, 2022) is the first book-length analysis of Amazon's Kindle explores the platform's techno...
Sangeet Kumar, "The Digital Frontier: Infrastructures of Control on the Global Web" (Indiana UP, 2021)
10 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In The Digital Frontier: Infrastructures of Control on the Global Web (Indiana University Press, 2021), Sangeet Kumar interrogates the world wide we...
Computational Creativity
06 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Saronik talks to Tuhin Chakrabarty about the creative processes of Artificial Intelligence, what we can expect from it, and how to keep the results...
John Zerilli, "A Citizen's Guide to Artificial Intelligence" (MIT Press, 2022)
04 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Artificial intelligence, or AI for short, has generated a staggering amount of hype in the past several years. Is it the game-changer it's been cracke...
Daniel J. Solove and Woodrow Hartzog, "Breached!: Why Data Security Law Fails and How to Improve It" (Oxford UP, 2022)
02 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Digital connections permeate our lives-and so do data breaches. Given that we must be online for basic communication, finance, healthcare, and more, i...
Amanda D. Lotz, "Media Disrupted: Surviving Pirates, Cannibals, and Streaming Wars" (MIT Press, 2021)
27 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Has the internet really been the main culprit behind the upheaval of the contemporary media industries? In Media Disrupted: Surviving Pirates, Cannib...
Nicole Starosielski, "Media Hot and Cold" (Duke UP, 2021)
20 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Media Hot and Cold (Duke UP, 2021) attunes the reader to temperature as a crucial but often overlooked terrain of control, communication and contesta...
Delinda Collier, "Media Primitivism: Technological Art in Africa" (Duke UP, 2020)
20 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Media Primitivism: Technological Art in Africa (Duke University Press, 2020) Delinda Collier provides a sweeping new understanding of technologic...
Gavin Mueller, "Breaking Things at Work: The Luddites Are Right About Why You Hate Your Job" (Verso, 2021)
20 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Breaking Things at Work: The Luddites are Right About Why You Hate Your Job (Verso, 2021), Gavin Mueller provides a bracing and wide-ranging stu...
David Nemer, "Technology of the Oppressed: Inequity and the Digital Mundane in Favelas of Brazil" (MIT Press, 2022)
19 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Technology of the Oppressed: Inequity and the Digital Mundane in Favelas of Brazil (MIT Press, 2022), David Nemer draws on extensive ethnographic...
Kris Ruijgrok, "Internet Use and Protest in Malaysia and Other Authoritarian Regimes" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)
15 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Internet-enabled mobilization begins long before there is a call for protest. In the book Internet Use and Protest in Malaysia and other Authoritaria...
Jonathan Beller, "The World Computer: Derivative Conditions of Racial Capitalism" (Duke UP, 2021)
15 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In The World Computer: Derivative Conditions of Racial Capitalism (Duke UP, 2021) Jonathan Beller forcefully demonstrates that the history of commod...
Susanne A. Wengle, "Black Earth, White Bread: A Technopolitical History of Russian Agriculture and Food" (U Wisconsin Press, 2022)
15 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Black Earth, White Bread: A Technopolitical History of Russian Agriculture and Food (University of Wisconsin Press, 2022), Dr. Susanne A. Wengle ...
Susanne A. Wengle, "Black Earth, White Bread: A Technopolitical History of Russian Agriculture and Food" (U Wisconsin Press, 2022)
15 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Black Earth, White Bread: A Technopolitical History of Russian Agriculture and Food (University of Wisconsin Press, 2022), Dr. Susanne A. Wengle ...
Robert A Jacobs, "Nuclear Bodies: The Global Hibakusha" (Yale UP, 2022)
13 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Robert Jacob’s book Nuclear Bodies: The Global Hibakusha (Yale UP, 2022) re‑envisions the history of the Cold War as a slow nuclear war, fought ...
Nic Marsh et al., "Indefensible: Seven Myths that Sustain the Global Arms Trade" (Zed Books, 2017)
07 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Although there is often opposition to individual wars, most people continue to believe that the arms industry is necessary in some form: to safeguard ...
Robert Buderi, "Where Futures Converge: Kendall Square and the Making of a Global Innovation Hub" (MIT Press, 2022)
05 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been called “the most innovative square mile on the planet.” It's a life science hub, hosting Biog...
Hannah Star Rogers, "Routledge Handbook of Art, Science, and Technology Studies" (Routledge, 2021))
30 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
I spoke with Hannah Star Rogers, one of the editors of the Routledge Handbook of Art, Science, and Technology Studies (Routledge, 2021). Art and sc...
Thomas Haigh and Paul E. Ceruzzi, "A New History of Modern Computing" (MIT Press, 2021)
30 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In A New History of Modern Computing (MIT Press, 2021), Thomas Haigh and Paul Ceruzzi trace changes leading to the computer becoming a ubiquitous...
Christopher Ali, "Farm Fresh Broadband: The Politics of Rural Connectivity" (MIT, 2021)
29 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As much of daily life migrates online, broadband—high-speed internet connectivity—has become a necessity. The widespread lack of broadband in rura...
Scott Timcke, "Algorithms and the End of Politics: How Technology Shapes 21st-Century American Life" (Bristol UP, 2021)
28 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As the US contends with issues of populism and de-democratization, this timely study considers the impacts of digital technologies on the country’s ...
Howard Burton, "Pandemic Perspectives: A Filmmaker's Journey in 10 Essays" (Open Agenda, 2022)
22 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Howard Burton has been talking to very wise people for decades--scientists, historians, political thinkers, philosophers, etc. When Covid "hit" he was...
Kate Crawford, "The Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence" (Yale UP, 2021)
21 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when artificial intelligence saturates political life and depletes the planet? How is AI shaping our understanding of ourselves and our s...
Ori Schwarz, "Sociological Theory for Digital Society: The Codes That Bind Us Together" (Polity Press, 2021)
16 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The digital revolution has not only transformed multiple aspects of social life – it also shakes sociological theory, transforming the most basic as...
Florian Jaton, "The Constitution of Algorithms: Ground-Truthing, Programming, Formulating" (MIT Press, 2021)
16 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Constitution of Algorithms: Ground-Truthing, Programming, Formulating (MIT Press, 2021) is a laboratory study that investigates how algorithms ...
Lydia Pyne, "Postcards: The Rise and Fall of the World’s First Social Network" (Reaktion Books, 2021)
15 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For this episode, I met historian and writer Dr. Lydia Pyne. She is author of Postcards: The Rise and Fall of the World’s First Social Network (Re...
Silvia M. Lindtner, "Prototype Nation: China and the Contested Promise of Innovation" (Princeton UP, 2020)
10 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Prototype Nation: China and the Contested Promise of Innovation (Princeton University Press, 2020) reveals how a growing distrust in Western models o...
Alan Rubel et al., "Algorithms and Autonomy: The Ethics of Automated Decision Systems" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
08 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Many have experienced moments where algorithms have made us uncomfortable or suspicious. In Algorithms and Autonomy: The Ethics of Automated Decisio...
Sarah Brayne, "Predict and Surveil: Data, Discretion, and the Future of Policing" (Oxford UP, 2020)
04 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Police use of advanced data collection and analysis technologies—or, "big data policing"—continues to receive both positive and negative attention...
Firmin Debrabander, "Life After Privacy: Reclaiming Democracy in a Surveillance Society" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
03 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Privacy is gravely endangered in the digital age, and we, the digital citizens, are its principal threat, willingly surrendering it to avail ourselves...
Shameen Prashantham, "Gorillas Can Dance: Lessons from Microsoft and Other Corporations on Partnering with Startups" (Wiley, 2021)
17 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Shameen Prashantham about his book Gorillas Can Dance: Lessons from Microsoft and Other Corporations on Partnering with Startups ...
Tony Veale, "Your Wit Is My Command: Building AIs with a Sense of Humor" (MIT Press, 2021)
16 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For fans of computers and comedy alike, an accessible and entertaining look into how we can use artificial intelligence to make smart machines funny. ...
Michael Luca and Max H. Bazerman, "The Power of Experiments: Decision Making in a Data-Driven World" (MIT Press, 2021)
16 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Have you logged into Facebook recently? Searched for something on Google? Chosen a movie on Netflix? If so, you've probably been an unwitting particip...
Michelle Millar Fisher and Amber Winick, "Designing Motherhood: Things that Make and Break Our Births" (MIT Press, 2021)
15 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Designing Motherhood: Things that Make and Break Our Births (MIT Press, 2021), Michelle Millar Fisher and Amber Winick along with more than fifty...
Jun Liu, "Shifting Dynamics of Contention in the Digital Age: Mobile Communication and Politics in China" (Oxford UP, 2020)
11 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How has digital communication technologies impacted the dynamics of political contention in China? What is the role of mobile technology in the countr...
Kevin Coe and Joshua M. Scacco, "The Ubiquitous Presidency: Presidential Communication and Digital Democracy in Tumultuous Times" (Oxford UP, 2021)
10 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Ubiquitous Presidency: Presidential Communication and Digital Democracy in Tumultuous Times (Oxford UP, 2021) is part of the Oxford Studies in D...
Rashmi Sadana, "The Moving City: Scenes from the Delhi Metro and the Social Life of Infrastructure" (U California Press, 2021)
09 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Moving City: Scenes from the Delhi Metro and the Social Life of Infrastructure (U California Press, 2021) is a rich and intimate account of urban...
Diane Coyle, "Cogs and Monsters: What Economics Is, and What It Should Be" (Princeton UP, 2021)
08 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Cogs and Monsters: What Economics Is, and What It Should Be (Princeton UP, 2021), Diane Coyle explores the enormous problems—but also opportuni...
Paul A. Offit, "You Bet Your Life: From Blood Transfusions to Mass Vaccination, the Long and Risky History of Medical Innovation" (Basic Book, 2021)
07 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Every medical decision—whether to have chemotherapy, an X-ray, or surgery—is a risk, no matter which way you choose. In You Bet Your Life: From B...
Where the Wild Things Are: Reimagining the More-Than-Human City
04 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Amidst accelerating environmental change and intense urbanisation, there is growing enthusiasm for building sustainable and ‘natural’ cities. Yet,...
Peter Cappelli, "The Future of the Office: Work from Home, Remote Work, and the Hard Choices We All Face" (Wharton School Press, 2021)
03 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode I spoke to Professor Peter Cappelli about his new book The Future of the Office: Work from Home, Remote Work, and the Hard Choices We...