‘An excitable, high-octane account’ – IndependentIn October 2022, Elon Musk marched through Twitter’s front doors after buying the digital giant for $44 billion. His takeover came with the promise of fundamental change, but nothing could prepare the company for the chaos to come – brutal mass firings, an exodus of advertisers and ‘blue-tick’ celebrities and a vicious battle for control.With unique access to Twitter insiders and Musk’s confidants, this is the astonishing story from all sides. Why did Elon overhaul Twitter’s blue-tick system, and how did it lead to the near-collapse of the company’s revenue? Will Twitter – now X – survive? How has the constant negative press coverage affected Elon?With a wealth of hidden details, Breaking Twitter gives ringside seats to one of the most dramatic and compelling business stories of our time.‘Mezrich’s books are the sort of engrossing reads you pick up in the airport then find the blockbuster film on the plane’ – Evening Standard Read more

"A fabulous look at the world's most indispensable machines and the most vital company you've never heard of.” -Ben Cohen, Wall Street Journal‘Marc Hijink provides an unparalleled analysis of ASML’s extraordinary rise.’ – Chris Miller, author of Chip war.For decades the most valuable technologycompany in Europe operated in the shadows. The chips manufactured by its machines, power our smartphones and AI assistants, make our coffee and drive our cars and even guide cruise missiles. In fact, roughly 90% of all chips worldwide are made with ASML’s machines. In recent years, the Dutch manufacturing company has found itself in the spotlight, at the centre of a geopolitical storm between the United States, China and Europe.In Focus – The ASML way, journalist Marc Hijink brings us a unique insider portrait of this global giant. Hijink not only details the company’s meteoric rise from a quiet town in the Netherlands to a powerful, global monopoly position, he also makes accessible the unbelievably complex technology that has been the key to ASML’s success. It’s lithography machines, which spit out millions of chips around the clock, work to an accuracy of within a few atoms.China is trying to copy the ASML technology while investing billions in its own chip-manufacturing programs to rival that of Taiwan. The US, in turn, seems to have the Dutch government on their side as they try and resuscitate their own chip manufacturing industry amid trade and cyber-warfare with China. Behind all the mind-blowing tech, Hijink discovers, ASML is a company fighting its own demons, scrambling to keep up with its success and an increasing number of security threats.This is the intimate story of the people and culture behind a business now caught in a diplomatic struggle for global might.‘The tech cold war most complicated machine’ – The New York Times‘The most obscure company in the world’ – BBC Read more

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER‘A compelling vision of where the internet should go and how to get there.’ Sam Altman, CEO, OpenAIThe promise of the internet has been stolen.Over the last decade, a handful of giant companies like Facebook and Google have seized control of the web – sapping its dynamism and taking its profits for themselves.But there is a way to take it back.Here, a leading Silicon Valley investor argues that blockchains – the radically free and democratic new type of software design that underpins ‘web3’ – could return financial and decision-making power to the internet’s users. For the first time, we won’t just read and write on the internet – we will own it, too.‘A must for anyone who wants to better understand the real potential of blockchains and web3.’ Bob Iger, CEO, Disney‘A refreshing and radical new take at a time when we need fresh thinking more than ever.’ Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind and author of The Coming Wave‘The most elegant and sophisticated argument for blockchain to date . . . Shines as a history of computing and the internet.’ Fortune Read more

“Exposes the vast gap between the actual science underlying AI and the dramatic claims being made for it.” —John Horgan“If you want to know about AI, read this book…It shows how a supposedly futuristic reverence for Artificial Intelligence retards progress when it denigrates our most irreplaceable resource for any future progress: our own human intelligence.” —Peter ThielEver since Alan Turing, AI enthusiasts have equated artificial intelligence with human intelligence. A computer scientist working at the forefront of natural language processing, Erik Larson takes us on a tour of the landscape of AI to reveal why this is a profound mistake.AI works on inductive reasoning, crunching data sets to predict outcomes. But humans don’t correlate data sets. We make conjectures, informed by context and experience. And we haven’t a clue how to program that kind of intuitive reasoning, which lies at the heart of common sense. Futurists insist AI will soon eclipse the capacities of the most gifted mind, but Larson shows how far we are from superintelligence—and what it would take to get there.“Larson worries that we’re making two mistakes at once, defining human intelligence down while overestimating what AI is likely to achieve…Another concern is learned passivity: our tendency to assume that AI will solve problems and our failure, as a result, to cultivate human ingenuity.”—David A. Shaywitz, Wall Street Journal“A convincing case that artificial general intelligence—machine-based intelligence that matches our own—is beyond the capacity of algorithmic machine learning because there is a mismatch between how humans and machines know what they know.”—Sue Halpern, New York Review of Books Read more

The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum CryptographyFrom the best-selling author of Fermat’s Last Theorem, The Code Book is a history of man’s urge to uncover the secrets of codes, from Egyptian puzzles to modern day computer encryptions.As in Fermat’s Last Theorem, Simon Singh brings life to an anstonishing story of puzzles, codes, languages and riddles that reveals man’s continual pursuit to disguise and uncover, and to work out the secret languages of others.Codes have influenced events throughout history, both in the stories of those who make them and those who break them. The betrayal of Mary Queen of Scots and the cracking of the enigma code that helped the Allies in World War II are major episodes in a continuing history of cryptography. In addition to stories of intrigue and warfare, Simon Singh also investigates other codes, the unravelling of genes and the rediscovery of ancient languages and most tantalisingly, the Beale ciphers, an unbroken code that could hold the key to a $20 million treasure.Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version. Read more

THE #2 TIMES BESTSELLER'Artificial intelligence is going to have a massive impact on everyone’s lives... an accessible and sensible read that helps demystify AI' Deborah Meaden, entrepreneur and star of Dragon's Den'Nigel Toon is a visionary leader in the field of artificial intelligence... a must-read' Marc Tremblay, Distinguished Engineer, MicrosoftThose who understand how AI thinks are about to win big.We are used to thinking of computers as being a step up from calculators - very good at storing information, and maybe even at playing a logical game like chess. But up to now they haven't been able to think in ways that are intuitive, or respond to questions as a human might. All that has changed, dramatically, in the past few years.Our search engines are becoming answer engines. Artificial intelligence is already revolutionising sectors from education to healthcare to the creative arts. But how does an AI understand sentiment or context? How does it play and win games that have an almost infinite number of moves? And how can we work with AI to produce insights and innovations that are beyond human capacity, from writing code in an instant to unfolding the elaborate 3D puzzles of proteins?We stand at the brink of a historic change that will disrupt society and at the same time create enormous opportunities for those who understand how AI thinks. Nigel Toon shows how we train AI to train itself, so that it can paint images that have never existed before or converse in any language. In doing so he reveals the strange and fascinating ways that humans think, too, as we learn how to live in a world shared by machine intelligences of our own creation. Read more

Top cybersecurity journalist Kim Zetter tells the story behind the virus that sabotaged Iran’s nuclear efforts and shows how its existence has ushered in a new age of warfare—one in which a digital attack can have the same destructive capability as a megaton bomb.   In January 2010, inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Agency noticed that centrifuges at an Iranian uranium enrichment plant were failing at an unprecedented rate. The cause was a complete mystery—apparently as much to the technicians replacing the centrifuges as to the inspectors observing them.   Then, five months later, a seemingly unrelated event occurred: A computer security firm in Belarus was called in to troubleshoot some computers in Iran that were crashing and rebooting repeatedly.    At first, the firm’s programmers believed the malicious code on the machines was a simple, routine piece of malware. But as they and other experts around the world investigated, they discovered a mysterious virus of unparalleled complexity.   They had, they soon learned, stumbled upon the world’s first digital weapon. For Stuxnet, as it came to be known, was unlike any other virus or worm built before: Rather than simply hijacking targeted computers or stealing information from them, it escaped the digital realm to wreak actual, physical destruction on a nuclear facility.    In these pages, Wired journalist Kim Zetter draws on her extensive sources and expertise to tell the story behind Stuxnet’s planning, execution, and discovery, covering its genesis in the corridors of Bush’s White House and its unleashing on systems in Iran—and telling the spectacular, unlikely tale of the security geeks who managed to unravel a sabotage campaign years in the making.   But Countdown to Zero Day ranges far beyond Stuxnet itself. Here, Zetter shows us how digital warfare developed in the US. She takes us inside today’s flourishing zero-day “grey markets,” in which intelligence agencies and militaries pay huge sums for the malicious code they need to carry out infiltrations and attacks. She reveals just how vulnerable many of our own critical systems are to Stuxnet-like strikes, from nation-state adversaries and anonymous hackers alike—and shows us just what might happen should our infrastructure be targeted by such an attack.   Propelled by Zetter’s unique knowledge and access, and filled with eye-opening explanations of the technologies involved, Countdown to Zero Day is a comprehensive and prescient portrait of a world at the edge of a new kind of war. Read more

Tracy Kidder's "riveting" (Washington Post) story of one company's efforts to bring a new microcomputer to market won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and has become essential reading for understanding the history of the American tech industry. Computers have changed since 1981, when The Soul of a New Machine first examined the culture of the computer revolution. What has not changed is the feverish pace of the high-tech industry, the go-for-broke approach to business that has caused so many computer companies to win big (or go belly up), and the cult of pursuing mind-bending technological innovations.The Soul of a New Machine is an essential chapter in the history of the machine that revolutionized the world in the twentieth century. "Fascinating...A surprisingly gripping account of people at work." --Wall Street Journal Read more

Retrospective reviews of over 200 ZX Spectrum games published between 1982 and 1984 - An Introduction from Crash Editor Roger Kean, and interviews from developers such as Steve Turner (Hewson Consultants), Charles Cecil (Artic, US Gold, Activision), Mel Croucher (Automata), Jon Ritman (Ocean Software, Artic), John Gibson (Imagine, Denton Designs, Ocean), Malcolm Evans (New Generation), Don Priestley (DK,Troniks, Pirahna), Simon Brattel (Crystal Computing, Design Design), Scott Adams (Adventure International), Kevin Toms (Addictive Games), Mike Lamb (CDS, Ocean), Daren White (Gem Software, Rainbow Arts), David Leitch (Silversoft, Binary Design, Sales Curve), Ally Noble (Imagine, Denton Designs), Andy Stagg (Automata), and Bruce Everiss (Bug Byte, Imagine, Codemasters). Fully illustrated with Screenshots of every game - Some original box artwork and advertisements, and original illustrations from Rob Grenville-Evans (Automata). Read more

Following his blockbuster biography of Steve Jobs, The Innovatorsis Walter Isaacson's story of the people who created the computer and the Internet. It is destined to be the standard history of the digital revolution and a guide to how innovation really works. What talents allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their disruptive ideas into realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some succeed and others fail? In his exciting saga, Isaacson begins with Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter, who pioneered computer programming in the 1840s. He then explores the fascinating personalities that created our current digital revolution, such as Vannevar Bush, Alan Turing, John von Neumann, J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Robert Noyce, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee and Larry Page. This is the story of how their minds worked and what made them so creative. It's also a narrative of how their ability to collaborate and master the art of teamwork made them even more creative. For an era that seeks to foster innovation, creativity and teamwork, this book shows how they actually happen. Read more

In Terrible Old Games You've Probably Never Heard Of, Stuart Ashen has created a collection of hilarious and damning reviews of some of the most bizarre, frustrating, pointless and downright terrible video games ever made. And he would know. . . he's played them all.Dripping with wry humour and featuring the best, worst graphics from the games themselves, this book encapsulates the atrocities produced in the days of tight budgets and low quality controls. These are the most appalling games that ever leaked from the industry's tear ducts and have long since been (rightly) relegated to the dusty shelves of history.Welcome to a world of games you never knew existed. You will probably wish you still didn't.   Read more

“Power Without the Price.” Every Atari fan remembers that slogan from the 1980s as the rallying cry for 16-bit computing in the form of the Atari ST. This groundbreaking computer brought previously unimagined power to the home user for the first time—and transformed an industry or two along the way. Author Jamie Lendino offers a fresh, vital look at the history of the Atari ST, guiding you from its inauspicious genesis at the center of a company known for its gaming consoles to its category-defining triumphs in music, desktop publishing, and video gaming. And he doesn’t stop there: He then leaps to the present to pull back the veil on the thriving software and mod communities that aren’t just keeping it alive today, but taking it to places its creators never could have imagined.Whether you’re a longtime devotee who wants to relive the magic of the machine that unleashed the wonders of Dungeon Master, Time Bandit, and Starglider, an intrepid DIYer on the hunt for new ideas and resources to take your homebrew system to the next level, or a newcomer hungry to learn the ins and outs of one of the most important computers ever created, this book will get you there just as the ST did its long-ago digital pioneers: Faster Than Light. Read more

A groundbreaking treatise by one of the great mathematicians of our age, who outlines a style of thinking by which great ideas are conceived.What inspires and spurs on a great idea? Can we train ourselves to think in a way that will enable world-changing understandings and insights to emerge?Richard Hamming said we can. He first inspired a generation of engineers, scientists, and researchers in 1986 with “You and Your Research,” an electrifying sermon on why some scientists do great work, why most don’t, why he did, and why you can—and should—too. The Art of Doing Science and Engineering is the full expression of what “You and Your Research” outlined. It's a book about thinking; more specifically, a style of thinking by which great ideas are conceived.The book is filled with stories of great people performing mighty deeds—but they are not meant simply to be admired. Instead, they are to be aspired to, learned from, and surpassed. Hamming consistently returns to Shannon’s information theory, Einstein’s theory of relativity, Grace Hopper’s work on high-level programming, Kaiser’s work on digital filters, and his own work on error-correcting codes. He also recounts a number of his spectacular failures as clear examples of what to avoid.Originally published in 1996 and adapted from a course that Hamming taught at the US Naval Postgraduate School, this edition includes an all-new foreword by designer, engineer, and founder of Dynamicland Bret Victor, plus more than 70 redrawn graphs and charts.The Art of Doing Science and Engineering is a reminder that a capacity for learning and creativity are accessible to everyone. Hamming was as much a teacher as a scientist, and having spent a lifetime forming and confirming a theory of great people and great ideas, he prepares the next generation for even greater distinction. Read more

This is the last untold story of Bletchley Park. Using declassified information, Paul Gannon gives us a gripping account of the invention of the world's first true computer, Colossus.Uncover the secrets of Bletchley Park's code-breaking computers.In 1940, almost a year after the outbreak of the Second World war, Allied radio operators at an interception station in South London began picking up messages in a strange new code. Using science, maths, innovation and improvisation Bletchley Park codebreakers worked furiously to invent a machine to decipher what turned out to be the secrets of Nazi high command. It was called Colossus.What these codebreakers didn't realize was that they had to fashion the world's first true computer. When the war ended, this incredible invention was dismantled and hidden away for almost 50 years. Paul Gannon has pieced together the tremendous story of what is now recognized as the greatest secret of Bletchley Park.'Gannon's book contains a mass of utterly fascinating and largely unknown material about an immensely important wartime project, and is very welcome indeed.' - Brian Rendell, TES Read more

In 1990 Nintendo had a virtual monopoly on the video game industry. Sega, on the other hand, was a faltering arcade company with big aspirations and even bigger personalities. But that would all change with the arrival of Tom Kalinske, a man who knew nothing about video games and everything about fighting uphill battles. His unconventional tactics, combined with the blood, sweat and bold ideas of his renegade employees, transformed Sega and eventually led to a ruthless David-and-Goliath showdown with rival Nintendo.The battle was vicious, relentless and highly profitable, eventually sparking a global corporate war that would be fought on several fronts: from living rooms and schoolyards to boardrooms and Congress. It was a once-in-a-lifetime, no-holds-barred conflict that pitted brother against brother, kid against adult, Sonic against Mario, and the US against Japan.Console Wars is the underdog tale of how Kalinske miraculously turned an industry punchline into a market leader. It's the story of how a humble family man, with an extraordinary imagination and a gift for turning problems into competitive advantages, inspired a team of underdogs to slay a giant and, as a result, birth a $60 billion dollar industry. Read more

101 ZX Spectrum Games To Play Before You Die is a full-colour screenshot-filled ZX Spectrum fest and helpfully summarises the plot, the good bits and the not so good bits of each of the 101 games, including how the game play, graphics and sound effects fare. The games are ordered chronologically from 1982 to 1993, and also include a brief history of the events of each year relating to the Spectrum, the magazines, other home computers of the time. Some of the games featured include classics like Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy, Knight Lore, Cauldron, Chuckie Egg, Out Run, Robocop and Repton. Give these games a play and see whether you agree or disagree with my comments, either through Spectrum emulation or the real thing as it was back in the early 1980's with a real ZX Spectrum, tape recorder, chunky joystick and fuzzy television. Read more

The fascinating story of how Unix began and how it took over the world. Brian Kernighan was a member of the original group of Unix developers, the creator of several fundamental Unix programs, and the co-author of classic books like "The C Programming Language" and "The Unix Programming Environment." Read more

Notorious. Illegal. Avoid if you can.These are words most commonly used to describe what some mistakenly call 'The Deep Web'. Yet, the Deep Web is where your banking information sits. Your shopping profile, your saved searches, and your passwords.What they’re really referring to is THE DARK WEB, and I’ll take you there—with the proper preparation and knowledge of its history. Learn who created the Dark Web and how long it’s been in existence. Discover the people who dedicated their lives to the technology that runs the Dark Web, and why they made such sacrifices. You’ll read about those who rose to dizzying heights plumbing riches in the darknet, and who fell because of their vanity and overconfidence.In The Dark Web Dive, you’ll unbury the facts about:The secret origin of Tor and the Tor ProjectThe uncensored history of the Dark Web, Arpanet and its dark siblingsWho provides funding for the Dark Web? (You’ll be surprised.)The stories behind the Silk Road, Hansa, and other infamous Dark Web marketplaces.The truth about the Surface Web and why Google is not to be trusted with your information, and what you can do about it?The technology you need to keep your internet identity safe on a daily basis.The chilling tales of the Dark Web. Are the urban legends coming from the darknets based in truth?Who are the heroes, and who are the villains of hidden service sites? And how to tell one from another?A step-by-step guide to suit up before you embark on your own Dark Web Dive.The answers you’ve always wanted to the questions you were perhaps too afraid to ask are here, along with a wealth of knowledge to open your eyes as to what’s really happening below the surface of the Internet every day. Be one of the ones who know the truth and has the facts to arm themselves against identity theft and data farming. Dare to take The Dark Web Dive today! Read more

"Deborah Mills-Scofield new book is a must read for anybody who is serious about their Value Proposition. It’s a treasure trove of examples, strategies, and tactics to design, test, and iterate your value proposition."—Alexander Osterwalder, CEO of StrategyzerDeveloping a product that truly resonates with users is no easy feat. Most products fail—not because they are poorly executed, but because they fail to solve real customer needs. In Value Proposition, Deborah Mills-Scofield draws on 25 real-world companies and her decade of experience advising startups to attain product-market fit. You’ll discover how iconic brands crafted their value propositions, iterated on experiments, and made the strategic decisions to build products users love. Whether you’re developing a new app, SaaS platform, or consumer product, this book equips you with the practical tools and insights to:Create compelling and unique value propositionsRapidly test assumptions and prototype new ideasContinuously gather customer feedback and refine the product experienceBuild competitive advantages that delight customers and accelerate growthValue Proposition shows you how to discover and build products people genuinely want. Read more

If you are asking yourself these questions then this book is for you:Will AI eliminate the need for Enterprise Architects?How have IT domains evolved into todays Cloud based architecture?How does Enterprise Architecture impact business operations?What made Salesforce so successful?How do mobile wallets and mobile payments work?What are the ingredients to a successful EA governance function?Why do large businesses need an EA department?What skills do I need to become an Enterprise Architect?Find answers to these and other questions like them in this new book about Enterprise Architecture. Read more