It’s often difficult to predict which areas of a field will become rejuvenated and grow rapidly or spin off to fit with another to form something new. The field of electro-optics is also unpredictable, but currently it has numerous forces acting on it. First is the development of new optical sources such as ultrafast lasers and fiber...

Payment systems are the indispensable infrastructure for financial markets and business activities. Every commercial trade and financial transaction is finalized only when the final settlement is made through a payment system. If operational failures would occur in a payment system, preventing smooth transfers of funds, national economies and...

Let me get one thing out of the way right from the get-go: I think you’re pretty darn smart for buying a For Dummies book. That says to me that you have the confidence and intelligence to know what you don’t know. The For Dummies franchise is built around the core notion that all of us feel insecure about certain topics when...

The May 26, 2011 edition of the Economist magazine cites a report by the the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) about data becoming a factor of production, such as physical or human capital. Across the industry, enterprises are investing significant resources in harnessing value from vast amounts of data to innovate, compete, and reduce...

Unreal Development Kit Game Design Cookbook explores how real-time environments are built. Key features of UDK are examined—assets, animation, light, materials, game controls, user interface, special effects, and interactivity—with the objective to make UDK more technically accessible so that users can transcend technique and...