x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

New Books in Technology

New Books Network

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox:

technology tech news

All Episodes

71:56

Cyrus Mody on the Importance of Square (as in NOT...

New Books in Technology ·

2024/08/26

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks to Cyrus Mody, Professor in the History of Science, Technology, and Innovation and Director of the STS Program at Maastricht University, about his book, The Squares: US Physical and Engineering Scientists in the Long 1970s (MIT Press, 2022). Many narratives about contemporary technologies, especially digital computing and the Internet, focus on the influences of 1960s counter-cultures. In _The Squares_, Mody takes the opposite approach and asks how square,

en

43:07

Phil Haun, "Tactical Air Power and the Vietnam War:...

New Books in Technology ·

2024/08/25

Tactical Air Power and the Vietnam War: Explaining Effectiveness in Modern Air Warfare (Cambridge UP, 2023) introduces a much-needed theory of tactical air power to explain air power effectiveness in modern warfare with a particular focus on the Vietnam War as the first and largest modern air war. Phil Haun shows how in the Rolling Thunder, Commando Hunt, and Linebacker air campaigns, independently air power repeatedly failed to achieve US military and political objectives. In contrast, air forces

en

56:05

Craig Gent, "Cyberboss: The Rise of Algorithmic...

New Books in Technology ·

2024/08/13

Across the world, algorithms are changing the nature of work. Nowhere is this clearer than in the logistics and distribution sectors, where workers are instructed, tracked and monitored by increasingly dystopian management technologies.In Cyberboss: The Rise of Algorithmic Management and the New Struggle for Control at Work (Verso, 2024), Craig Gent takes us into workplaces where algorithms rule to excavate the politics behind the newest form of managerial power. Combining worker testimony and

en

72:38

Andrew Denning, "Automotive Empire: How Cars and...

New Books in Technology ·

2024/08/07

In Automotive Empire: How Cars and Roads Fueled European Colonialism in Africa (Cornell University Press, 2024), Dr. Andrew Denning uncovers how roads and vehicles began to transform colonial societies across Africa but rarely in the manner Europeans expected. Like seafaring ships and railroads, automobiles and roads were more than a mode of transport—they organised colonial spaces and structured the political, economic, and social relations of empire, both within African colonies and between

en

61:04

Mark Walker, "Hitler's Atomic Bomb: History, Legend,...

New Books in Technology ·

2024/08/05

Who were the German scientists who worked on atomic bombs during World War II for Hitler's regime? How did they justify themselves afterwards? Examining the global influence of the German uranium project and postwar reactions to the scientists involved, Mark Walker explores the narratives surrounding 'Hitler's bomb'. The global impacts of this project were cataclysmic. Credible reports of German developments spurred the American Manhattan Project, the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and

en

74:05

Tim Sweijs and Jeffrey H. Michaels, "Beyond Ukraine:...

New Books in Technology ·

2024/07/26

War in the 21st century will remain a chameleon that takes on different forms and guises. Beyond Ukraine: Debating the Future of War (Oxford University Press, 2024) edited by Tim Sweijs and Jeffrey H. Michaels offers the first comprehensive update and revision of ideas about the future of war since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. It argues that the war has fundamentally shifted our perspective on the nature and character of future war, but also cautions against marginalising many other parallel

en

75:41

Thomas Zeller, "Consuming Landscapes: What We See...

New Books in Technology ·

2024/07/17

What we see through our windshields reflects ideas about our national identity, consumerism, and infrastructure.For better or worse, windshields have become a major frame for viewing the nonhuman world. The view from the road is one of the main ways in which we experience our environments. These vistas are the result of deliberate historical forces, and humans have shaped them as they simultaneously sought to be transformed by them. In Consuming Landscapes: What We See When We Drive and Why It

en

71:31

Paula Bialski on Middletech, Software Work, and the...

New Books in Technology ·

2024/07/15

Peoples & Things host Lee Vinsel talks with Paula Bialski, an Associate Professor for Digital Sociology at the University of St. Gallen in St. Gallen, Switzerland, about her recent book, Middle Tech: Software Work and the Culture of Good Enough (Princeton UP, 2024). The pair talk about the art of ethnographic study of software work, and how, maybe, our world could do with a healthy dose of good enough-ness. They also scheme about some potential collaborations here on Peoples & Things, which you

en

41:02

Carl Öhman, "The Afterlife of Data: What Happens to...

New Books in Technology ·

2024/07/14

A short, thought-provoking book about what happens to our online identities after we die.These days, so much of our lives takes place online—but what about our afterlives? Thanks to the digital trails that we leave behind, our identities can now be reconstructed after our death. In fact, AI technology is already enabling us to “interact” with the departed. Sooner than we think, the dead will outnumber the living on Facebook. In this thought-provoking book, Carl Öhman explores the increasingly

en

60:34

AI and Music: The Future is Here (featuring "There I...

New Books in Technology ·

2024/07/13

It’s the UConn Popcast, and recently UConn’s Center for the Study of Popular Music hosted a panel discussion on Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Music. The panel featured Dr. Mitchell Green, Professor of Philosophy, University of Connecticut; Dustin Ballard, a musician and creator of the social media channel “There I Ruined It”; and Dr. Aaron Dial, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Humanities and Technoscience Lab at Purdue University. The conversation addressed AI music creation,

en

39:27

Aram Sinnreich and Jesse Gilbert, "The Secret Life of...

New Books in Technology ·

2024/07/10

What is data, and why does it matter for us to care about the data traces we leave behind? What are the implications for our lives of how this data is used by other people in other times and places? In a conversation with Joanne Kuai, authors Aram Sinnreich and Jesse Gilbert introduce their new book and talk about how we can rethink our relationship with data and stay informed to make better decisions in the face of technological uncertainty.In their latest book, The Secret Life of Data: Navigating

en

66:36

Shannon Vallor, "The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our...

New Books in Technology ·

2024/07/10

There's a lot of talk these days about the existential risk that artificial intelligence poses to humanity -- that somehow the AIs will rise up and destroy us or become our overlords. In The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking (Oxford UP), Shannon Vallor argues that the actual, and very alarming, existential risk of AI that we face right now is quite different. Because some AI technologies, such as ChatGPT or other large language models, can closely mimic the

en

22:17

Jeremy Black, "A World History of Rail: From the...

New Books in Technology ·

2024/07/06

There were 20,000 miles of railways in 1865 and about a million by 2020. Scale has always been a key theme in railway history. In the First World War, the London and North West Railway transported 325,000 miles of barbed wire and over twelve million pairs of army boots. At the end of the twentieth century, Indian Railways sold 4.5 billion tickets annually.In A World History of Rail: From the Steam Regime to Today (Amberley Publishing, 2023), Jeremy Black examines how rail transformed the world

en

42:14

Tara Ward, "Appreciation Post: Towards an Art History...

New Books in Technology ·

2024/07/05

What does an art history of Instagram look like? Appreciation Post: Towards an Art History of Instagram (University of California Press, 2024) by Dr. Tara Ward reveals how Instagram shifts long-established ways of interacting with images. Dr. Ward argues Instagram is a structure of the visual, which includes not just the process of looking, but what can be seen and by whom. She examines features of Instagram use, including the effect of scrolling through images on a phone, the skill involved in

en

51:00

Eve Herold, "Robots and the People Who Love Them:...

New Books in Technology ·

2024/07/04

The latest developments in robotics and artificial intelligence and a preview of the coming decades, based on research and interviews with the world's foremost experts. If there’s one universal trait among humans, it’s our social nature. The craving to connect is universal, compelling, and frequently irresistible. This concept is central to Robots and the People Who Love Them: Holding on to Our Humanity in an Age of Social Robots (St. Martin's Press, 2024). Socially interactive robots will soon

en

47:09

Jason Hannan, "Trolling Ourselves to Death: Democracy...

New Books in Technology ·

2024/07/02

We commonly think of trolls as anonymous online pranksters who hide behind clever avatars and screen names. In Trolling Ourselves to Death: Democracy in the Age of Social Media (Oxford UP, 2024), Jason Hannan reveals how the trolls have emerged from the cave and now walk in the clear light of day. Once limited to the darker corners of the internet, trolls have since gone mainstream, invading our politics and eroding our civic culture. Trolls are changing the norms of democratic politics and shaping

en

31:10

Living with Digital Surveillance in China

New Books in Technology ·

2024/06/24

How do Chinese citizens make sense of digital surveillance and live with it? What narratives do they come up with to deal with the daily and all-encompassing reality of life in China? What mental tactics do they apply to dissociate themselves from surveillance? Ariane Ollier-Malaterre explores these questions in her book Living with Digital Surveillance in China (Routledge, 2023). Ariane Ollier-Malaterre, Professor of Management and Canada Research Chair on Digital Regulation at Work and in Life at

en

61:58

Ann Johnson and Johannes Lenhard, "Cultures of...

New Books in Technology ·

2024/06/24

A probing examination of the dynamic history of predictive methods and values in science and engineering that helps us better understand today's cultures of prediction.The ability to make reliable predictions based on robust and replicable methods is a defining feature of the scientific endeavor, allowing engineers to determine whether a building will stand up or where a cannonball will strike. Cultures of Prediction: How Engineering and Science Evolve with Mathematical Tools (MIT Press, 2024),

en

51:56

Siobhan Angus, "Camera Geologica: An Elemental...

New Books in Technology ·

2024/06/21

In Camera Geologica: An Elemental History of Photography (Duke UP, 2024) Siobhan Angus tells the history of photography through the minerals upon which the medium depends. Challenging the emphasis on immateriality in discourses on photography, Angus focuses on the inextricable links between image-making and resource extraction, revealing how the mining of bitumen, silver, platinum, iron, uranium, and rare earth elements is a precondition of photography. Through a materials-driven analysis of visual

en

56:44

Paulina Rowinska, "Mapmatics: How We Navigate the...

New Books in Technology ·

2024/06/19

How does a delivery driver distribute hundreds of packages in a single working day? Why does remote Alaska have such a large airport? Where should we look for elusive serial killers? The answers lie in the crucial connection between maps and maths.In Mapmatics: How We Navigate the World Through Numbers (Pan Macmillan, 2024), Dr Paulina Rowinska embarks on a fascinating journey to discover the mathematical foundations of cartography and cartographical influences on mathematics. From a

en

271 results

Similar Podcasts

Lead With AI

Tamara Nall

Linux in the Ham Shack

Black Sparrow Media

Data Engineering Podcast

Tobias Macey

Eye On A.I.

Craig S. Smith

Reflections

Livewire Labs