Wireless communications is rapidly becoming one of the ubiquitous technological underpinnings of modern society (such as electric power, fossil fuels, automobiles, etc.). Few people think about the technology within their mobile phones, remote controls, garage door openers, GPS navigation devices, and so on. These devices are always at hand...

We are made of atoms. With each breath you inhale a million billion billion atoms of oxygen, which gives some idea of how small each one is. All of them, together with the carbon atoms in your skin, and indeed everything else on Earth, were cooked in a star some 5 billion years ago. So you are made of stuff that is as old as the planet,...

Ambient Intelligence lies at the confluence of several trends: the continued decrease in cost and size of computing technology; the increasing availability of networking and communication infrastructure; the growing public familiarity/comfort with computing artifacts; and practical advances in artificial intelligence. These developments make...

Aerosol particles are ubiquitous in the Earth's atmosphere and are central to many environmental issues such as climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion and air quality. In urban environments, aerosol particles can affect human health through their inhalation.

Atmospheric aerosols originate from naturally occurring...

Consumer electronics (CE) devices, providing multimedia entertainment and enabling communication, have become ubiquitous in daily life. However, consumer interaction with such equipment currently requires the use of devices such as remote controls and keyboards, which are often inconvenient, ambiguous and non-interactive. An important...

The biggest game-changing force in business since the creation of the Internet, cloud computing simplifies and lowers the cost of operations while providing flexibility and power you never dreamed possible. Make your strategic move now, with...

Style is a fundamental and ubiquitous aspect of the human experience: Everyone instantly and constantly assesses people and things according to their individual styles, academics establish careers by researching musical, artistic, or architectural styles, and entire industries maintain themselves by continuously creating and marketing new...

IN LITTLE MORE THAN HALF A DECADE, Facebook has gone from a dorm-room novelty to a company with 500 million users. It is one of the fastest growing companies in history, an essential part of the social life not only of teenagers but hundreds of millions of adults worldwide. As Facebook spreads around the globe, it creates surprising...

Smart object technology, sometimes called the Internet of Things, is having a profound impact on our day-to-day lives. Interconnecting Smart Objects with IP is the first book that takes a holistic approach to the revolutionary area of IP-based smart objects. Smart objects are the intersection of networked embedded systems, wireless...

JomSocial is an out-of-the-box extension that enables a Joomla! website administrators to set up a social...

Winner, 2009 Sally Hacker Prize given by the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT). and Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2006

Technology matters, writes David Nye, because it is inseparable from being human. We have used tools for more than 100,000 years, and their central purpose has not always been to...