Hitting the Books
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Hitting the Books: What goes on at a summer camp for YouTube Gaming kidfluencers
In her new book, Break the Internet, Olivia Yallop explores the history, culture and business dealings that make up the modern online influencer economy.
Andrew Tarantola08.14.2022Hitting the Books: How much that insurance monitoring discount might really be costing you
Yes, AI/ML systems are better at certain tasks than humans -- but, technically, so are horses. That's no reason to fear robots, argues Gerd Gigerenzer in his new book, How to Stay Smart in a Smart World.
Andrew Tarantola08.07.2022Hitting the Books: How Moderna dialed-in its vaccine to fight COVID's variants
In "The Messenger," veteran reporter Peter Loftus takes readers through the harrowing days of 2020 as COVID-19 raged across the globe and biotech startup Moderna raced to create a vaccine to halt the viral rampage.
Andrew Tarantola07.31.2022Hitting the Books: COVID set off an exodus of urban artisans
In Return of the Artisan, Grant McCracken explores how a post-war America gradually rediscovered its home-spun roots as well as the accelerating effect the COVID pandemic has had on America's rejection of "smart city" living and embrace of a more pastoral lifestyle.
Andrew Tarantola07.24.2022Hitting the Books: How mass media transformed coyotes into scapegoats
In "The Accidental Ecosystem" Peter Alagona explores how and why America’s cities — once largely barren of natural features — have exploded with wildlife over the past 150 years, even as populations have declined in their traditional habitats.
Andrew Tarantola07.17.2022Hitting the Books: Modern social media has made misinformation so, so much worse
In "Tyrants on Twitter" Professor David Sloss explores how social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok have become platforms for political operations which have very real and very dire consequences for democracy.
Andrew Tarantola07.10.2022Hitting the Books: How 3D printing helped make cosplay costumes even more accurate
In "Cosplay: A History," Andrew Liptak explores the theatrical origins of the craft and its evolution from costuming enthusiasm to full-fledged fandom -- as well as how advances in technology have impacted the cosplay community.
Andrew Tarantola07.03.2022Hitting the Books: Why lawyers will be essential to tomorrow's orbital economy
In their new book, The End of Astronauts, astrophysicist and science editor, Donald Goldsmith, and Martin Rees, the UK's Astronomer Royal, argue in favor of sending robotic scouts out into the void ahead of human explorers.
Andrew Tarantola06.26.2022Hitting the Books: Summer reading list
Got a recommendation for a book that you just couldn’t put down? Drop us a line at Tips@engadget.com about it and we might just include it in a future roundup!
Andrew Tarantola06.22.2022Hitting the Books: What life on the internet was like at 300 bits per second
[Dial-up noises]
Andrew Tarantola06.19.2022Hitting the Books: In Russia, home is where the hearth is
In her latest book, The Kingdom of Rye, prominent food scholar Darra Goldstein turns her gaze towards a resourceful people who have overcome their climate, repeated famines, hunger, and political repression to establish a culture and cuisine of their own.
Andrew Tarantola06.12.2022Hitting the Books: What the 'Work from Home' revolution means for those who can't
In his new book, Going Remote, urban economist Matthew E. Kahn examines how the tectonic shift in work-life balance brought about by the pandemic might eventually play out, as well as the increased economic and social divides that it harbingers.
Andrew Tarantola05.29.2022Hitting the Books: Why we need to treat the robots of tomorrow like tools
In their new book, The Digital Mindset, authors Paul Leonardi and Tsedal Neeley make the case for treating tomorrow's humanoid robots like products, not peers.
Andrew Tarantola05.15.2022Hitting the Books: US regulators are losing the fight against Big Tech
Despite its nearly limitless resources, federal regulators and legislators have struggled to keep pace -- much less rein in -- the worst tendencies of today's Big Tech corporations as Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Thomas Ramge in 'Access Rules'
Andrew Tarantola05.08.2022Hitting the Books: Dodge, Detroit and the Revolutionary Union Movement of 1968
In the excerpt below from Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor, journalist Kim Kelly recalls the wildcat strikes across the American auto industry in 1967, coinciding with the emergence of DRUM, the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement.
Andrew Tarantola05.01.2022Hitting the Books: When the military-industrial complex came to Silicon Valley
In his latest book, War Virtually, professor of Anthropology at San José State University, Roberto J González examines the military's increasing reliance on remote weaponry and robotic systems are changing the way wars are waged.
Andrew Tarantola04.24.2022Hitting the Books: How American militarism and new technology may make war more likely
In Future Peace, Dr. Robert H. Latiff, Maj Gen USAF (Ret), explores how the American military's increasing reliance on weaponized drones, AI and Machine Learning systems, automation and similar cutting-edge technologies, could create the perfect conditions for getting a lot of people killed.
Andrew Tarantola04.17.2022Hitting the Books: Raytheon, Yahoo Finance and the rise of the 'cybersmear' lawsuit
That time Raytheon subpoenaed Yahoo! to get it to give up the names of three anonymous Y! Finance message board users so it could sue them too.
Andrew Tarantola04.03.2022Hitting the Books: The Soviets once tasked an AI with our mutually assured destruction
In "The New Fire" (out now from MIT Press) we see why AIs should not be allowed to engage in nuclear brinksmanship.
Andrew Tarantola03.27.2022