'A fascinating expose of the world behind your screen. Timely, often disturbing, and so important' Caroline Criado Perez, author of Invisible Women 'Takes us beyond Zuckerberg, Bezos et al to a murkier world where we discover how everything online works and who benefits from it. Fascinating, engaging and important' Observer 'Could not be more timely' Spectator The internet is a network of physical cables and connections, a web of wires enmeshing the world, linking huge data centres to one another and eventually to us. All are owned by someone, financed by someone, regulated by someone. We refer to the internet as abstract from reality. By doing so, we obscure where the real power lies. In this powerful and necessary book, James Ball sets out on a global journey into the inner workings of the system. From the computer scientists to the cable guys, the billionaire investors to the ad men, the intelligence agencies to the regulators, these are the real-life figures powering the internet and pulling the strings of our society. Ball brilliantly shows how an invention once hailed as a democratising force has concentrated power in places it already existed - that the system, in other words, remains the same as it did before.

__________ *Picked by the Financial Times as a Best Read of 2021* 'Impressive and inspiring' Financial Times 'I have no intention of making small bets' - Masayoshi Son In order to understand what's happening in Silicon Valley, you just need to look at Masayoshi Son. __________ There is no one in the world right now who is in a better position to influence the next wave of technology than Masayoshi Son. Not Jeff Bezos, not Mark Zuckerberg, not Elon Musk. They might have the money, but they lack Masa's combination of ambition, imagination, and nerve. Masayoshi Son is the most powerful person in Silicon Valley. As CEO and founder of the Japanese investment firm, SoftBank Group, 'Masa' has invested in some of the most exciting and influential tech companies in recent memory - Uber, WeWork, ByteDance, and many others. Prior to that, he was known as one of the first investors in Alibaba and Yahoo! He has an audacious vision for the future and one that is unmatched in the tech industry. Aiming High provides insight into this charismatic and visionary leader. Originally published in Japan, this book charts Son's rise from a Korean immigrant who left Japan at 16 to becoming one of the wealthiest people in the world. With unprecedented access to Son, including exclusive interviews, this book creates an authoritative account of how SoftBank Group and it's visionary and charismatic CEO is shaping the future of tech. __________

At a time when the practices of technology companies continue to attract fierce criticism, this book asks what it actually means to hold a 'monopoly' in the tech world and how it might affect the way in which an organization operates. Combining new and traditional Marxian perspectives, the authors offer an in-depth analysis of how these technology giants are produced, financialized, and regulated. As technology firms continue to shape our political and socio-economic landscape, this book will be an invaluable resource for scholars and students who seek to understand the function of technological monopolies in contemporary capitalism.

Virtual worlds are the latest manifestation of the internet's inexorable appetite for development. Organisations of all kinds are enthusiastically pursuing the commercial opportunities offered by the growth of this phenomenon. But if you believe that there are no laws which govern internet social networks and virtual worlds this book will persuade you otherwise. There is law, and a good deal of it. Why would there not be? As with many other aspects of the world wide web, this new medium is unregulated and offers many opportunities for companies to damage their reputation, run into a whole host of problems relating to intellectual property, trade marks and copyrights, and compromise the rights of individuals participating within the virtual environment. By reading The Law of Virtual Worlds and Internet Social Networks you will gain a good understanding of the legal issues which govern this expanding and fascinating world - are you ready for the leap from internet plaything to meaningful social and business tool? The Law of Virtual Worlds and Internet Social Networks is an essential reference for advertising and media agencies; television broadcast producers; academic institutions including university law, knowledge and information departments. In fact, it has been written for anyone interested in virtual worlds and social networks whether commercially because you want to explore the possibilities such environments present, or for academic curiosity.

Interactive journalism has transformed the newsroom. Emerging out of changes in technology, culture, and economics, this new specialty uses a visual presentation of storytelling that allows users to interact with the reporting of information. Today it stands at a nexus: part of the traditional newsroom, yet still novel enough to contribute innovative practices and thinking to the industry. Nikki Usher brings together a comprehensive portrait of nothing less than a new journalistic identity. Usher provides a history of the impact of digital technology on reporting, photojournalism, graphics, and other disciplines that define interactive journalism. Her eyewitness study of the field's evolution and accomplishments ranges from the interactive creation of Al Jazeera English to the celebrated data desk at the Guardian to the New York Times' Pulitzer-endowed efforts in the new field. What emerges is an illuminating, richly reported profile of the people coding a revolution that may reverse the decline and fall of traditional journalism.

The contributions to this study of the origins of centers of industrial and technological innovation (such as Silicon Valley) reveal that these concentrated "clusters" of entrepreneurial high tech firms are characterized by rapid economic growth. No other analysts have examined how such clusters start, although many earlier works have studied Silicon Valley. The study's contributors conclude that the key public and business policy elements of starting a cluster are common to many regions, countries, and time periods.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the notion that nearly everything we use, from gym shorts to streetlights, will soon be connected to the Internet; the Internet of Everything (IoE) encompasses not just objects, but the social connections, data, and processes that the IoT makes possible. Industry and financial analysts have predicted that the number of Internet-enabled devices will increase from 11 billion to upwards of 75 billion by 2020. Regardless of the number, the end result looks to be a mind-boggling explosion in Internet connected stuff. Yet, there has been relatively little attention paid to how we should go about regulating smart devices, and still less about how cybersecurity should be enhanced. Similarly, now that everything from refrigerators to stock exchanges can be connected to a ubiquitous Internet, how can we better safeguard privacy across networks and borders? Will security scale along with this increasingly crowded field? Or, will a combination of perverse incentives, increasing complexity, and new problems derail progress and exacerbate cyber insecurity? For all the press that such questions have received, the Internet of Everything remains a topic little understood or appreciated by the public. This volume demystifies our increasingly "smart" world, and unpacks many of the outstanding security, privacy, ethical, and policy challenges and opportunities represented by the IoE. Scott J. Shackelford provides real-world examples and straightforward discussion about how the IoE is impacting our lives, companies, and nations, and explain how it is increasingly shaping the international community in the twenty-first century. Are there any downsides of your phone being able to unlock your front door, start your car, and control your thermostat? Is your smart speaker always listening? How are other countries dealing with these issues? This book answers these questions, and more, along with offering practical guidance for how you can join the effort to help build an Internet of Everything that is as secure, private, efficient, and fun as possible.

The contributors to Signal Traffic investigate how the material artifacts of media infrastructure--transoceanic cables, mobile telephone towers, Internet data centers, and the like--intersect with everyday life. Essayists confront the multiple and hybrid forms networks take, the different ways networks are imagined and engaged with by publics around the world, their local effects, and what human beings experience when a network fails. Some contributors explore the physical objects and industrial relations that make up an infrastructure. Others venture into the marginalized communities orphaned from the knowledge economies, technological literacies, and epistemological questions linked to infrastructural formation and use. The wide-ranging insights delineate the oft-ignored contrasts between industrialized and developing regions, rich and poor areas, and urban and rural settings, bringing technological differences into focus. Contributors include Charles R. Acland, Paul Dourish, Sarah Harris, Jennifer Holt and Patrick Vonderau, Shannon Mattern, Toby Miller, Lisa Parks, Christian Sandvig, Nicole Starosielski, Jonathan Sterne, and Helga Tawil-Souri.

Net neutrality is the most contested Internet access policy of our time. This book offers an in-depth explanation of the concept, addressing its history since 1999, its engineering, the policy challenges it represents and its legislation and regulation. Various case studies are presented, including Specialized Services and Content Delivery Networks for video over the Internet, and the book goes on to examine the future of net neutrality battles in Europe, the United States and developing countries, as well as offering co-regulatory solutions based on FRAND and non-exclusivity. It will be a must-read for researchers and advocates in the net neutrality debate, as well as those interested in the context of communications regulation, law and economic regulation, human rights discourse and policy, and the impact of science and engineering on policy and governance. -- .

This book concentrates on the parallel evolution of debt crisis and digital communications in Greece. By examining four different online and social media platforms, it examines a seven-year period to uncover the impact of digital media on the contentious politics of crisis, as well as the impact of the political economic sphere on the formation of the Greek digital mediascape. The research employs cyberconflict theory to situate online mediated conflict in a geo-political, socio-political and historical context, revealing the dynamic relation between the online media and the offline world. The work provides an updated framework which recommends the use of online data and the study of social media platforms for the examination of cyberconflict. It delves into the political transformations which have emerged in the context of the Greek crisis such as the anti-/pro- austerity debate, the euro-vs-drachma debate, the anti-/pro-governmental debate, or the Grexit discussion, and shines a light on how, in the context of crisis, the online space becomes a magnifying glass which points out conflict, opposition and drives polarization.

An approach to reinvigorating economic competition that doesn't break up corporate giants, but compels them to share their technology, data, and knowledge "Bessen is a master of unpacking the nuances of a complex array of interrelated trends to build a coherent story of how the promise of the democratized Internet ended up under the control of just a few. Read The New Goliaths to see how the forest came to have only room for a few tall trees with the rest of us in the undergrowth."-Joshua Gans, coauthor of Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence Historically, competition has powered progress under capitalism. Companies with productive new products rise to the top, but sooner or later, competitors come along with better innovations and disrupt the threat of monopoly. Dominant firms like Walmart, Amazon, and Google argue that this process of "creative destruction" prevents them from becoming too powerful or entrenched. But the threat of competition has sharply decreased over the past twenty years, and today's corporate giants have come to power by using proprietary information technologies to create a tilted playing field. This development has increased economic inequality and social division, slowed innovation, and allowed dominant firms to evade government regulation. In the face of increasing calls to break up the largest companies, James Bessen argues that a better way to restore competitive balance and dynamism is to encourage or compel these companies to share technology, data, and knowledge.

Extensive data on the theoretical and practical aspects of electronic reference services! Digital Reference Services provides an overview of electronic reference services and software, and explores the opportunities that real-time digital reference services can offer in a variety of library settings. Experts in the field convey numerous opinions and theory about the growth of this new approach to answering reference questions. This book teaches librarians new methods and techniques for offering technologically advanced reference services to the public. The first half of Digital Reference Services includes such topics as: real-time or live online reference services the historical development of digital reference services and the role of the reference librarian mediated online searches how to create a virtual-ready reference collection of elite reference Web sitesincludes a list of the top sites available to the public how to start and operate a digital reference desk in your library The second half of Digital Reference Services covers examples of librariesboth large and smallwhich have used revolutionary ideas to bring electronic reference services to their patrons. These ideas include: utilizing ATM-like kiosks in remote locations from library buildings to connect with underserved populations implementing live, interactive web-based reference servicesthe challenges and benefits, cost, training, and workload requirements evaluating your real-time references servicesinvestigating self-assessment and blind reviewing, incorporating your assessment into an existing evaluative program, and obtaining the administrative support essential for an accurate assessment creating a statewide virtual reference systemselecting software, developing policy, marketing, coordinating the project, and staffing and training online reference management for smaller librariesbecause of the smaller staff, smaller budget, and smaller amount of patrons, is it a feasible addition to the library? much more! This well-referenced volume contains case examples, figures, useful Web sites, and case histories to show how the basic principles of digital reference services work. Librarians and students of information and library science will find Digital Reference Services a helpful resource to enhance their library and electronic reference expertise.

Making the move from an IT technician or team member to management is one of the most difficult career steps you ll face. Help from management and targeted training can be hard to come by - and your success depends on your ability to adapt to your new role almost overnight. You might have years of experience in the trenches, but you ll quickly find that managing a team, setting budgets, and creating a winning strategy for the first time can be daunting tasks.

Now in its third edition, "IT Manager s Handbook" provides a practical reference that you will return to again and again in an ever-changing corporate environment where the demands on IT continue to increase. Make your first 100 days really count with the fundamental principles and core concepts critical to your success as a new IT Manager. The book also includes discusses how to develop an overall IT strategy as well as demonstrate the value of IT to the company.

In this book, you ll learn how to: Manage your enterprise s new level of connectivity with a NEW chapter covering social media, handheld devices, and moreImplement and optimize cloud services to provide a better experience for your mobile and virtual workforce at a lower cost to your bottom lineIntegrate mobile applications into your company s strategyManage the money, including topics such as department budgets and leasing versus buyingWork with your "customers," whomever those might be for your IT shopHire, train, and manage your team and their projects so that you come in on time and budgetSecure your systems to face some of today's most challenging security challenges"

The 1990s dawned with a belief that the digital revolution would radically transform our traditional notion of cities as places of commerce and industry. Many predicted that digital technology would render cities, or at least their economies, obsolete. Instead, precisely the opposite happened. The IT-intensive firms of the 'new economy' needed to be plugged into a sizeable network of talent, something that established cities like New York and San Francisco provided in abundance. In addition to creating new types of jobs and luring thousands of workers back into the city, new media districts created a new techno-bohemian urban culture. With vignettes of the high-rollers in New York's new media economy and stories of wild parties in downtown lofts, Michael Indergaard introduces us to the players in this new economy, and explores this intersection of commerce and culture in 1992 New York. He also reveals how the dot-com crash laid bare the hidden connections between the so called new economy of new media and the ages old engines of New York wealth: real estate speculators and Wall Street. Chronicling the go-go years and ultimate crash of the new media district, Silicon Alley is a bril

The second edition of Sports Journalism: An Introduction to Reporting and Writing has passed the test of time, been used in classrooms internationally, received approval and praise from professors and students, and now it, too, has moved into the new environment of sports media. New chapters on social media and topical issues in the sports world, as well as fresh examples and new references to current technology fill its pages whether you choose to read from a tablet, a Smartphone, a Chromebook or old-fashioned paper wrapped in a cardboard cover. Inside this new edition you'll find * Three new chapters devoted to the evolution from a daily news source to a 24/7 news cycle. * Interviews with journalists whose circulation is measured in the number of Twitter followers he or she has. * A chapter encouraging discussion of ethical issues affecting today's athletes: Should college athletes be paid to compete? Can play be too violent? Is there a level playing field for men and women? How should eligibility be determined for athletes who may be transitioning their gender identity? * A glossary that includes terms such as 'hot takes,' 'scrum,' 'trolls.'

Is it time to become a manager? Nest and vest? Join that start-up? Tell your boss he's a liar? Or resign in disgust? As a software engineer, you'll face many important decisions such as these, and when you do, you realize there's much more to your career than dealing with code. Author Michael Lopp recalls his own make-or-break moments with Silicon Valley giants such as Apple, Borland, Netscape, and Symantec in Being Geek, the insightful and entertaining book that may help you manage your career better. Through a series of entertaining stories, Lopp walks through a complete job lifecycle, starting with the job search and finishing with the realization it might be time to look again. Plenty of books teach you how to interview for a job, or how to manage a project more successfully, but only "Being Geek" will help you handle all the baffling circumstances you experience at work, including how to: understand your boss with the chapter on 'Manager Management'; boost your career through networking with 'We Travel in Tribes'; deliver effective presentations, with 'How Not to Throw Up'; manage and actively participate in meetings, with 'What's On the Agenda'; and, realize when you should be looking for a new gig, with 'The Itch'.

This important book provides a systematic and quantitative analysis of the development of the software industry: the major growth industry in advanced economies of the world. It presents the results of a comprehensive set of industry surveys to shed light on the differences in specialization and performance of US and European software firms. Salvatore Torrisi analyses the development of the software industry within the context of theories of technical change. He interprets exhaustive surveys of firms participating in software industries conducted between 1990 and 1997. These reveal the main characteristics of innovation activities in software, including the characteristics of product and process innovations, the sources of technological change within firms, the instruments for the protection of innovation and the nature of innovative skills. The author also compares the historical evolution of software activities in Europe and in the United States and explains the differences in specialization and performance in terms of the geographical proximity to leading hardware manufacturers, the size of the domestic market, regulation and public policies, including property rights and anti-trust. This unparalleled book will be required reading for academics interested in industrial organisation and the economics of innovation.

Information Technology and Organizational Transformation is arguably the key challenge facing corporate executives and business school academics alike as we approach the millennium. Much that is superficial has been written on the topic in recent years. The siren call of the more popular literature in this area — seductive in the simplicity of the message of radically improved business performance brought about by IT and process re-engineering — has led to the unwary foundering on the rocks of the realpolitik associated with organizational change. But organizational innovation is possible — as the case studies included in this book amply demonstrate. While ‘best practice’ solutions may be illusory, the examples given herein, taken together with the fruits of research undertaken by leading academics from Continental Europe, Scandinavia, North America and the UK, provide key lessons that one ignores at one’s peril. This is a highly important contribution to knowledge. Bringing together such key themes as organizational learning, knowledge management, IT and business strategy alignment, the management of change, inter-organizational communications, corporate innovation and business process change, this book provides significant learning for those willing to challenge much of the received wisdom on this fascinating topic.

Many cloud computing initiatives flat-out fail; others limp along, functioning tolerably without ever delivering what they promised. An Insider's Guide to Cloud Computing reveals why and shows how to do better. Cloud pioneer and long-time CTO David Linthicum explodes the industry's secrets and presents practical ways to optimize cloud for value and performance. Linthicum takes a hard look at aggressively marketed technologies such as cloud-based AI, containers, no-code, serverless computing, and multicloud. He illuminates what works, what absolutely does not work, and how to manage the difficult cost-complexity tradeoffs presented by many offerings. You'll learn why some workloads and datasets still don't belong on the cloud, and even discover "game changer" technology that has actually been undersold. Linthicum's seen it all: the tricks providers play to make their numbers at customers' expense…realities whispered about in conference rooms and spilled over drinks at conferences…facts and techniques you simply must know to deliver value-optimized solutions. An Insider's Guide to Cloud Computing is for every technical and business decision-maker responsible for evaluating, planning, implementing, operating, or optimizing cloud systems. It offers exceptional value to professionals ranging from solution architects to cloud engineers, CTOs to enterprise consultants, or those just getting started on their cloud computing journey. What cloud providers don't tell you about their storage and compute services Cloud-based artificial intelligence and machine learning: What are you actually paying for? Containers, Kubernetes, and cloud-native development: truth versus hype Multicloud: Which approaches actually save you money? Real-world cloud security: beyond silos, black boxes, and out-of-control complexity Cloud computing, carbon footprints, and sustainability: reality versus fiction The crucial role of talent: how to identify, find, and keep the skills you need How cloud computing is changing—and how to prepare for what's coming

Do conceptions of the Rule of Law reflect timeless truths, or are they in fact contingent on a particular information and communications infrastructure - one that we are fast leaving behind? Hildebrandt has engineered a provocative encounter between law and networked digital technologies that cuts to the heart of the dilemma confronting legal institutions in a networked world.' - Julie E. Cohen, Georgetown University, US'Many contemporary authors are wrestling with two technological developments which will change our society beyond recognition: big data analytics and smart technologies. Few though understand, or can explain, these developments in the way Mireille Hildebrandt does. In ambitiously bringing together legal theory, psychology, social ethnology and of course smart agency and ambient intelligence, Hildebrandt gives the most complete study of these vitally important developments. Books are often described as 'must read' though few actually are; this one genuinely is.' - Andrew Murray, London School of Economics, UK This timely book tells the story of the smart technologies that reconstruct our world, by provoking their most salient functionality: the prediction and preemption of our day-to-day activities, preferences, health and credit risks, criminal intent and spending capacity. Mireille Hildebrandt claims that we are in transit between an information society and a data-driven society, which has far reaching consequences for the world we depend on. She highlights how the pervasive employment of machine-learning technologies that inform so-called 'data-driven agency' threaten privacy, identity, autonomy, non-discrimination, due process and the presumption of innocence. The author argues how smart technologies undermine, reconfigure and overrule the ends of the law in a constitutional democracy, jeopardizing law as an instrument of justice, legal certainty and the public good. Nevertheless, the book calls on lawyers, computer scientists and civil society not to reject smart technologies, explaining how further engaging these technologies may help to reinvent the effective protection of the Rule of Law. Academics and researchers interested in the philosophy of law and technology will find this book both discerning and relevant. Practitioners and policy makers in the areas of law, computer science and engineering will benefit from the insight into smart technologies and their impact today.

Over the last 30 years the internet has changed almost every moment of our daily lives, from how we communicate, how we travel, to how we find things. The next generation of the internet, called web3, will completely disrupt how we come together to create products & services, entertainment, financial services, our economies and even governance structures. This book will help you understand a history of where we've come from and map out what the future may bring by covering how the Supply-side Revolution works and how it's going to disrupt business, media, talent, capital and operations. As a business leader you need to prepare for this change. It will help you understand that no industry is immune to the impact of web3 and how to predict what's coming with web4. If your business is to prosper in this new economy it has to start working alongside web3 in an on-chain/off-chain hybrid. Business-as-usual will not disappear overnight but web3 has already created a multi-billion-dollar alternative economy. Business leaders can either ignore it, fight it or figure out how to integrate with it. As an individual, whether an entrepreneur, creative, product builder or operational talent, this book will support you in future-proofing your career, ensuring you are developing the right skills and strategy for a web3 future.

Teaches visual literacy, theory, scholarly critique, and practical application of visuals in professional communication careers Visual Communication: Insights and Strategies explores visual imagery in advertising, news coverage, political discourse, popular culture, and digital and social media technologies. It is filled with insights into the role of visuals in our dynamic social environment and contains strategies on how to use them. The authors provide an overview of theoretically-informed literacy and critical analysis of visual communication and demonstrate the ways in which we can assess and apply this knowledge in the fields of advertising, public relations, journalism, organizational communication, and intercultural communication. This important book: Reveals how to analyze visual imagery Introduces a 3-step process, Research-Evaluate-Create, to apply the knowledge gained Combines research, theory, and professional practice of visual communication Designed for undergraduate and graduate courses in visual communication as well as visual rhetoric, visual literacy, and visual culture, Visual Communication: Insights and Strategies reveals how to apply rhetorical theories to visual imagery.