What was the place of acoustics within the discipline of physics in the period, and how should the transformations of the field of acoustics be located within the transformations of the field of physics more generally?
Category: Book Reviews
My Fair Ladies
By Rachel Maines on April 24th, 2020 in Book Reviews, Ethics, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Robotics, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact
Julie Wosk’s My Fair Ladies is an engaging historical account of female automata, with sidelights on dolls, disembodied electronic female voices, masks, make-up, and the sexual and gender implications of efforts to create artificial humans.
Review: Films from the Future
By Katina Michael on January 28th, 2020 in Book Reviews, Ethics, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact
Somehow at the heart of sci-fi is returning power to the people who almost always regain control before things get completely out of hand. But we learn that our freedom comes at a cost. The reassuring aspect of Maynard’s work is that justice prevails, despite the ominous lurking of some technological beast that is waiting to be unleashed.
Climate Madhouse
By A. David Wunsch on November 29th, 2019 in Book Reviews, Environment, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact
Mann and Toles crystallize for us climate change denialism, principally in the United States, over the last generation. The core of this denial results from the confluence of several trends deeply embedded in the American culture.
Secrets and Lies
By Karl Stephan on October 17th, 2019 in Book Reviews, Case Studies, Ethics, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact
Holmes’s idea of inventing a cheap, small, fast, reliable blood-testing system to creatively destroy most of the world’s existing infrastructure for blood tests ran into big problems early on. But with her chutzpah, persuasiveness, and eventually with the help of outright obfuscations and lies, Holmes kept Theranos going until a Wall Street Journal investigative reporter named John Carreyrou responded to a lead by a health-care blogger that something fishy was going on.
BOOK REVIEW: The Revenge of Analog
By A. David Wunsch on September 5th, 2019 in Book Reviews, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact
“From today, painting is dead!” is said to have been proclaimed by the French painter Paul Delaroche in 1839 after seeing his first daguerreotype. His was an early name on the list of people who have made fools of themselves when prognosticating a future resulting from a new medium or invention. Motivated by either techno-euphoria or pessimism they have become famously wrong.
BOOK REVIEW: Algorithms of Oppression
By Rachelle Linner on May 23rd, 2019 in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Book Reviews, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact
Discrimination is “embedded in computer code and, increasingly, in artificial intelligence technologies that we are reliant on, by choice or not.”
Book Review: A Maverick of Electrical Science
By Bill Liles on February 23rd, 2019 in Book Reviews, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact
Oliver Heaviside (1850-1925) is now considered a maverick of electrical science, but he could also be considered the founder of that subject.
BOOK REVIEW: A Maverick of Electrical Science
By A. David Wunsch on December 11th, 2018 in Book Reviews, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact
It’s interesting that the first major science fiction novel was written by a woman and perhaps significant that it presents a dark vision of scientific experimentation.
BOOK REVIEW: The Camera Does the Rest: How Polaroid Changed Photography
By A. David Wunsch on September 30th, 2018 in Book Reviews, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact
Peter Buse, in his The Camera Does the Rest, stakes out different territory. His focus is on the social meaning of the Polaroid camera: how did it change photography? How were the cameras used? And how did Land intend them to be used — a concept that often differed from their actual use.
BOOK REVIEW: Drone Warfare
By Jacob Ossar on April 27th, 2018 in Book Reviews, Magazine Articles, Robotics, Societal Impact
When thanks to drone use soldiers rarely come home in body bags, members of the public are not often prompted to care about or even notice military activity half a world away.
BOOK REVIEW: Drowning in Information, Starving for Knowledge
By Abdullah Shahid and Ningzi Li on April 10th, 2018 in Book Reviews, Communication Technology, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact
Orman poses “information overload” as a paradox and gives us three mechanisms through which such paradox arises. The paradox is that technologies help us know more, but in the process, we know less.
Refrigeration Nation
By Karl Stephan on March 5th, 2018 in Book Reviews, Magazine Articles, Societal Impact
Jonathan Rees’s Refrigeration Nation has a great deal to say about the way refrigeration technology brought about profound changes in eating habits, agricultural practices, and even entire national economies over the last two centuries.
Book Review: Computer Accessibility Rights
By S. Henry-Buckmire on February 27th, 2018 in Book Reviews, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact
Petrick provides historic perspectives of how computer technology was developed in the United States allowing persons with disabilities full participation in their own lives and in the society.
BOOK REVIEW: Facist Pigs
By Nicholas G. Evans on October 20th, 2017 in Book Reviews, Magazine Articles, Societal Impact
In today’s world of climate denial and vaccine skepticism, one would be forgiven for assuming that an anti-intellectual, anti-expertise, anti-truth wave is sweeping the globe, and that the rise of the far right necessarily spells an end for science-informed policy.
Not So Fast
By Katina Michael on July 29th, 2017 in Book Reviews, Societal Impact
Not So Fast: Thinking Twice about Technology. By Doug Hill. Univ. of Georgia Press, Oct. 15, 2016, 240 pp. In… Read More
Pressed for Time
By Guest Author on July 29th, 2017 in Book Reviews, Human Impacts, Societal Impact
Pressed for Time: The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism. By Judy Wajcman. Chicago, IL: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2015,… Read More
The Truth about Tesla: The Myth of the Lone Genius in the History of Innovation
By A. David Wunsch on July 28th, 2017 in Book Reviews, Magazine Articles, Societal Impact
By Christopher Cooper. New York: Race Point Publishers, 2015, 195 pages. Ask a “twentysornething” or “millennial” A what the word… Read More
Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America
By ieeessit on June 29th, 2017 in Book Reviews, Magazine Articles, Societal Impact
By Richard White. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2011, 660 pp. Reviewed by Patrick Kidd In the broad sweep… Read More
The Circle
By ieeessit on June 29th, 2017 in Book Reviews, Privacy & Security
The Circle. By Dave Eggers. Knopf, 2013. Reviewed by Scott D. Eldridge. Have you taken the plunge and purchased one… Read More