The Control Revolution

The Control Revolution
Author: James R. Beniger
Publisher: Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 524
Release: 1986-09-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

Beniger traces the origin of the Information Society to major economic and business crises of the 1800s. Inevitably the Industrial Revolution, with its ballooning use of energy to drive material processes, required a corresponding growth in the exploitation of information.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution

The Fourth Industrial Revolution
Author: Klaus Schwab
Publisher: Crown Currency
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2017-01-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1524758876

World-renowned economist Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, explains that we have an opportunity to shape the fourth industrial revolu­tion, which will fundamentally alter how we live and work. Schwab argues that this revolution is different in scale, scope and complexity from any that have come before. Characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, the developments are affecting all disciplines, economies, industries and governments, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human. Artificial intelligence is already all around us, from supercomputers, drones and virtual assistants to 3D printing, DNA sequencing, smart thermostats, wear­able sensors and microchips smaller than a grain of sand. But this is just the beginning: nanomaterials 200 times stronger than steel and a million times thinner than a strand of hair and the first transplant of a 3D printed liver are already in development. Imagine “smart factories” in which global systems of manu­facturing are coordinated virtually, or implantable mobile phones made of biosynthetic materials. The fourth industrial revolution, says Schwab, is more significant, and its ramifications more profound, than in any prior period of human history. He outlines the key technologies driving this revolution and discusses the major impacts expected on government, business, civil society and individu­als. Schwab also offers bold ideas on how to harness these changes and shape a better future—one in which technology empowers people rather than replaces them; progress serves society rather than disrupts it; and in which innovators respect moral and ethical boundaries rather than cross them. We all have the opportunity to contribute to developing new frame­works that advance progress.

The Control Revolution

The Control Revolution
Author: James Beniger
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 512
Release: 2009-06-01
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 9780674020764

Why do we find ourselves living in an Information Society? How did the collection, processing, and communication of information come to play an increasingly important role in advanced industrial countries relative to the roles of matter and energy? And why is this change recent--or is it? James Beniger traces the origin of the Information Society to major economic and business crises of the past century. In the United States, applications of steam power in the early 1800s brought a dramatic rise in the speed, volume, and complexity of industrial processes, making them difficult to control. Scores of problems arose: fatal train wrecks, misplacement of freight cars for months at a time, loss of shipments, inability to maintain high rates of inventory turnover. Inevitably the Industrial Revolution, with its ballooning use of energy to drive material processes, required a corresponding growth in the exploitation of information: the Control Revolution. Between the 1840s and the 1920s came most of the important information-processing and communication technologies still in use today: telegraphy, modern bureaucracy. rotary power printing, the postage stamp, paper money, typewriter, telephone, punch-card processing, motion pictures, radio, and television. Beniger shows that more recent developments in microprocessors, computers, and telecommunications are only a smooth continuation of this Control Revolution. Along the way he touches on many fascinating topics: why breakfast was invented, how trademarks came to be worth more than the companies that own them, why some employees wear uniforms, and whether time zones will always be necessary. The book is impressive not only for the breadth of its scholarship but also for the subtlety and force of its argument. It will be welcomed by sociologists, economists, historians of science and technology, and all curious in general.

Access Controlled

Access Controlled
Author: Ronald Deibert
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 635
Release: 2010-04-02
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0262290731

Reports on a new generation of Internet controls that establish a new normative terrain in which surveillance and censorship are routine. Internet filtering, censorship of Web content, and online surveillance are increasing in scale, scope, and sophistication around the world, in democratic countries as well as in authoritarian states. The first generation of Internet controls consisted largely of building firewalls at key Internet gateways; China's famous “Great Firewall of China” is one of the first national Internet filtering systems. Today the new tools for Internet controls that are emerging go beyond mere denial of information. These new techniques, which aim to normalize (or even legalize) Internet control, include targeted viruses and the strategically timed deployment of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, surveillance at key points of the Internet's infrastructure, take-down notices, stringent terms of usage policies, and national information shaping strategies. Access Controlled reports on this new normative terrain. The book, a project from the OpenNet Initiative (ONI), a collaboration of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies, Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and the SecDev Group, offers six substantial chapters that analyze Internet control in both Western and Eastern Europe and a section of shorter regional reports and country profiles drawn from material gathered by the ONI around the world through a combination of technical interrogation and field research methods.

The Control Revolution

The Control Revolution
Author: Andrew L. Shapiro
Publisher:
Total Pages: 310
Release: 1999-06-03
Genre: Computers
ISBN:

Shapiro shows how the Net allows individuals to take power from institutions, causing hierarchies to unravel in politics, commerce, and social life, and that the result is not as ideal as cyber-utopianists would have us think.

Workers and Revolution in Iran

Workers and Revolution in Iran
Author: Asef Bayat
Publisher:
Total Pages: 248
Release: 1987
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

Based on a thesis, focuses on the workers of Iran and their experience of workers' control during the revolutionary period following the insurrection of February 1979. Considers the emergence of particular forms of work and workers' organizations, "shuras" or factory committees in the industrial workplaces; attempts to evaluate the experience and demise of the "shuras". Discusses the international dimension of the working class movement.

The Hamster Revolution

The Hamster Revolution
Author: Mike Song
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Total Pages: 153
Release: 2008-05-19
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1605099023

Offers an easy-to-implement solution to a problem--e-mail and information overload--that plagues millions of people • Draws on the authors' extensive experience working with major corporate clients • Includes a real-world case study of how the principles in the book were implemented at Capital One Do you spend so much time dealing with e-mails--reading them, writing them, responding to them, responding to responses--that you feel like you're just going round and round and getting nowhere? Meet Harold, an HR director so overwhelmed by email he feels like a hamster on a wheel. Just in time, Harold meets a coach--a leading expert on email efficiency and etiquette with a simple system that helps Harold eliminate needless emails, write better messages, and file and find information in a flash. He gets immediate results--and reclaims his life. This delightful and much-needed fable is based on the authors' extensive experience helping employees at companies like Clear Channel, Procter and Gamble, and Pfizer manage e-mail more efficiently. The book includes a remarkable case study of the authors' work with Capital One, where employees estimated they saved thirteen days a year by applying Hamster Revolution techniques. This book is perfect for time-starved professionals eager to restore balance and order to their busy lives.

Shaping the Future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Shaping the Future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Author: Klaus Schwab
Publisher: Currency
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2018-11-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1984822616

World Economic Forum Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab offers a practical companion and field guide to his previous book, The Fourth Industrial Revolution. Today, technology is changing everything--how we relate to one another, the way we work, how our economies and goverments function, and even what it means to be human. One need not look hard to see how the incredible advances in artificial intelligence, cryptocurrencies, biotechnologies, and the internet of things are transforming society in unprecedented ways. But the Fourth Industrial Revolution is just beginning, says Schwab. And at a time of such tremendous uncertainty and such rapid change, he argues it's our actions as individuals and leaders that will determine the trajectory our future will take. We all have a responsibility - as citizens, businesses, and institutions - to work with the current of progress, not against it, to build a future that is ethical, inclusive, sustainable and prosperous. Drawing on contributions from 200 top experts in fields ranging from machine learning to geoengineering to nanotechnology, to data ethics, Schwab equips readers with the practical tools to leverage the technologies of the future to leave the world better, safer, and more resilient than we found it.

The Cashless Revolution

The Cashless Revolution
Author: Martin Chorzempa
Publisher: Hachette UK
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2022-10-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1541700724

Financial Times, Best Books of 2022: Economics The startling picture of how China’s revolution in finance and technology is changing both Wall Street and the way individuals manage their personal finances. The future of finance – the way Wall Street operates and how individuals manage their money - is on the verge of upheaval. And the force underlying the change comes from China, where finance and technology are being merged into a system with consequences that resonate far beyond China’s border. The changes of this global revolution in finance and technology - fintech - will be as powerful as those wrought in social media, retailing and advertising by giants such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Twitter, which have overturned how we shop and communicate. China reinvented money with lightning speed, transforming a backward, antiquated cash-based finance system into one centered on super-apps created by technology giants Alibaba and Tencent. More powerful than anything available outside of China, they allow their billion users to pay, borrow, invest, buy goods and services, travel, chat (and far more) all fused together in one mobile phone application. Think Facebook, Google, Twitter, Goldman Sachs, Amazon, J.P. Morgan Chase all rolled into one app. We in the West need to understand China’s cashless revolution for reasons ranging from the macroeconomic to issues of personal liberty: The cutting edge of finance is now in China, forcing major financial firms in the United States and the West to figure out how not to be left behind.. China’s cashless revolution is also a harbinger of our future if we let the genie out of the bottle and allow big tech to become big finance. As money goes digital and central banks around the world consider launching digital currencies, we may have both immense convenience and a frightening concentration of power that could violate our privacy, stifle competition, increase financial risk, and give big firms or the government more control over our financial lives. And, once this genie is out of the bottle, the struggle to put it back in may be impossible.

The Electronics Revolution

The Electronics Revolution
Author: J.B. Williams
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2017-05-25
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3319490885

This book is about how electronics, computing, and telecommunications have profoundly changed our lives – the way we work, live, and play. It covers a myriad of topics from the invention of the fundamental devices, and integrated circuits, through radio and television, to computers, mobile telephones and GPS. Today our lives are ruled by electronics as they control the home and computers dominate the workspace. We walk around with mobile phones and communicate by email. Electronics didn’t exist until into the twentieth century. The industrial revolution is the term usually applied to the coming of steam, railways and the factory system. In the twentieth century, it is electronics that has changed the way we gather our information, entertain ourselves, communicate and work. This book demonstrates that this is, in fact, another revolution.