Make, Think, Imagine

Make, Think, Imagine
Author: John Browne
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2019-08-28
Genre: Science
ISBN: 164313275X

Today's unprecedented pace of change leaves many people wondering what new technologies are doing to our lives. Has social media robbed us of our privacy and fed us with false information? Are the decisions about our health, security and finances made by computer programs inexplicable and biased? Will these algorithms become so complex that we can no longer control them? Are robots going to take our jobs? Can we provide housing for our ever-growing urban populations? And has our demand for energy driven the Earth's climate to the edge of catastrophe?John Browne argues that we need not and must not put the brakes on technological advance. Civilization is founded on engineering innovation; all progress stems from the human urge to make things and to shape the world around us, resulting in greater freedom, health and wealth for all. Drawing on history, his own experiences and conversations with many of today's great innovators, he uncovers the basis for all progress and its consequences, both good and bad. He argues compellingly that the same spark that triggers each innovation can be used to counter its negative consequences. Make, Think, Imagine provides an eloquent blueprint for how we can keep moving towards a brighter future.

Imagination + Technology

Imagination + Technology
Author: Phil Turner
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 148
Release: 2020-02-17
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 3030373487

Imagination is highly valued and sought-after, yet elusive and ill-defined. Definitions range from narrowly cognitive accounts to those which endow imagination with world-making powers. Imagination underpins our ability to speculate about the future and to re-experience the past. The everyday functioning of society relies on being able to imagine the perspectives of others; and our sense of who we are depends on the stories our imaginations create. Our soaring imaginations have taken us to the moon and allowed Einstein to race a light beam. Unsurprisingly, imagination underlies every aspect of human-computer interaction, from the earliest conceptual sketches, through the realistic possibilities portrayed variously in well-known tools as scenarios and storyboards, through to the wilder shores of design fictions. Yet, curiously, imagination is very rarely addressed directly in the design and HCI literature (and is wholly missing from virtual reality). This book addresses this gap in our accounts of how we imagine, conceptualise, design and use digital technologies. Drawing on many years of practical and academic experience in human computer-interaction, together with a wide range of material from psychology, design, cognitive science and HCI, seasoned with a little philosophy and anthropology, Imagination + Technology first considers imagination itself and the principal farthings of a new account. Later chapters discuss the role of imagination in the design, aesthetics, use and experience of digital technologies before the concluding chapter focusses on the provocative nature of imagination. The book will be stimulating reading for anyone working in the field of interactive technology and related areas, whether academics, students or practitioners.

Value Sensitive Design

Value Sensitive Design
Author: Batya Friedman
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2019-05-21
Genre: Design
ISBN: 0262039532

Using our moral and technical imaginations to create responsible innovations: theory, method, and applications for value sensitive design. Implantable medical devices and human dignity. Private and secure access to information. Engineering projects that transform the Earth. Multigenerational information systems for international justice. How should designers, engineers, architects, policy makers, and others design such technology? Who should be involved and what values are implicated? In Value Sensitive Design, Batya Friedman and David Hendry describe how both moral and technical imagination can be brought to bear on the design of technology. With value sensitive design, under development for more than two decades, Friedman and Hendry bring together theory, methods, and applications for a design process that engages human values at every stage. After presenting the theoretical foundations of value sensitive design, which lead to a deep rethinking of technical design, Friedman and Hendry explain seventeen methods, including stakeholder analysis, value scenarios, and multilifespan timelines. Following this, experts from ten application domains report on value sensitive design practice. Finally, Friedman and Hendry explore such open questions as the need for deeper investigation of indirect stakeholders and further method development. This definitive account of the state of the art in value sensitive design is an essential resource for designers and researchers working in academia and industry, students in design and computer science, and anyone working at the intersection of technology and society.

The Technical Imagination

The Technical Imagination
Author: Beatriz Sarlo
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780804735421

The Technical Imagination explores how technology entered the popular imagination in the Argentina of the 1920s and 1930s and how its products helped to shape modern thinking at all levels of Argentine society.

Imagination Engineering

Imagination Engineering
Author: Paul Birch
Publisher: Financial Times/Prentice Hall
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2000
Genre: Creative ability in business
ISBN: 9780273649298

Develop creativity skills and solve business problems. Creativity isn't simply important; it's essential. Innovation, differentiation and out of the box thinking are the ultimate sources of commercial advantage. And, like every other essential business skill, creativity can be developed. Imagination Engineering offers a proven and highly successful formula for developing business creativity skills. Putting problem solving and idea generating techniques into a convenient and easy to remember framework, this highly practical and enjoyable guide covers all the stages of the creative process from identifying a problem to implementing a solution.

A Hybrid Imagination

A Hybrid Imagination
Author: Andrew Jamison
Publisher: Morgan & Claypool Publishers
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2010-10-10
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1608457389

This book presents a cultural perspective on scientific and technological development. As opposed to the "story-lines" of economic innovation and social construction that tend to dominate both the popular and scholarly literature on science, technology and society (or STS), the authors offer an alternative approach, devoting special attention to the role played by social and cultural movements in the making of science and technology. They show how social and cultural movements, from the Renaissance of the late 15th century to the environmental and global justice movements of our time, have provided contexts, or sites, for mixing scientific knowledge and technical skills from different fields and social domains into new combinations, thus fostering what the authors term a "hybrid imagination." Such a hybrid imagination is especially important today, as a way to counter the competitive and commercial "hubris" that is so much taken for granted in contemporary science and engineering discourses and practices with a sense of cooperation and social responsibility. The book portrays the history of science and technology as an underlying tension between hubris -- literally the ambition to "play god" on the part of many a scientist and engineer and neglect the consequences - and a hybrid imagination, connecting scientific "facts" and technological "artifacts" with cultural understanding. The book concludes with chapters on the recent transformations in the modes of scientific and technological production since the Second World War and the contending approaches to "greening" science and technology in relation to the global quest for sustainable development. The book is based on a series of lectures that were given by Andrew Jamison at the Technical University of Denmark in 2010 and draws on the authors' many years of experience in teaching non-technical, or contextual knowledge, to science and engineering students. The book has been written as part of the Program of Research on Opportunities and Challenges in Engineering Education in Denmark (PROCEED) supported by the Danish Strategic Research Council from 2010 to 2013. Table of Contents: Introduction / Perceptions of Science and Technology / Where Did Science and Technology Come From? / Science, Technology and Industrialization / Science, Technology and Modernization / Science, Technology and Globalization / The Greening of Science and Technology

Engineers Of The Imagination

Engineers Of The Imagination
Author: Tony Coult
Publisher: Methuen Drama
Total Pages: 436
Release: 1983
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

A guide to The Welfare State, a theatre group which uses the traditions of carnival, music hall and fairground to entertain audiences. Their work formed the centrepiece of Glasgow's 1990 City of Culture celebrations.

Imagination and Principles

Imagination and Principles
Author: M. Coeckelbergh
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2007-10-17
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0230589804

What does it mean to say that imagination plays a role in moral reasoning, and what are the theoretical and practical implications? Engaging with three traditions in moral theory and confronting them with three contexts of moral practice, this book comprehensively explores these questions and the relation between imagination and principles.