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"A galvanizing critique of the forces vying for our attention - and our personal information - that redefines what we think of as productivity, reconnects us with the environment, and reveals all that we've been too distracted to see about ourselves and our world. Nothing is harder to do these days than nothing. But in a world where our value is determined by our 24/7 data productivity ... doing nothing may be our most important form of resistance....

"Astronauts on the International Space Station must protect their resources--their lives depend on it. The same is true about Earth. For the planet to survive, we must also conserve water, air, food, and energy, and cut down on waste. 'Space on Earth' explores how innovative efforts in space are inspiring bright ideas on Earth, and how thinking like an astronaut can help us save the planet."-- Page 4 of cover

A guide to the inside workings of common machines and devices takes readers deep inside such items as car washes, light bulbs, escalators, nail guns, and lie detectors.

A provocative look at the new, digital landscape of childhood and how to navigate it. In The New Childhood, Jordan Shapiro provides a hopeful counterpoint to the fearful hand-wringing that has come to define our narrative around children and technology. Drawing on groundbreaking research in economics, psychology, philosophy, and education, The New Childhood shows how technology is guiding humanity toward a bright future in which our children will...

Text and numerous detailed illustrations introduce and explain the scientific principles and workings of hundreds of machines. Includes new material about digital technology.

Douglas Coupland, one of the world's biggest cultural brains, takes an inside look at the global company that keeps us connected, and wonders what all that connectivity is doing to our brains and our sense of ourselves as humans.
The incomparable Douglas Coupland reports from inside the corporate offices and science labs of Alcatel-Lucent, a globally influential business whose work is largely unknown to consumers. "Were it to vanish tomorrow,"...

What does it mean to be intelligent? Is it something unique to humans, or shared with other beings--beings of flesh, wood, stone, and silicon? The last few years have seen rapid advances in "artificial" intelligence. But as it approaches, it also gets weirder: rather than a friend or helpmate, AI increasingly appears as something stranger than we ever imagined, an alien invention that threatens to decenter and supplant us. At the same time, we're...