Download or read book Smart House written by Kate Wilhelm and published by . This book was released on 2013-06-25 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gary Elringer, an eccentric young computer genius, had sunk most of his company’s funds into the construction of Smart House—much to the dismay of stockholders, most of whom were family and friends. But, when Gary invited them all to a game of Assassin in the newly built house, he never dreamed he’d wind up dead for real. And, when one of the stockholders ends up dead, it’s clear that nothing less than murder is afoot in Smart House. Constance Leidl and Charlie Meiklejohn’s investigations soon show that all of Gary’s guests had reasons for wanting him dead—but everyone’s alibi is as well constructed as the house itself. Which leads to the next obvious question: Could the house be the killer? Just how smart is Smart House?
Download or read book The Smart Wife written by Yolande Strengers and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2021-08-31 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The life and times of the Smart Wife--feminized digital assistants who are friendly and sometimes flirty, occasionally glitchy but perpetually available. Meet the Smart Wife--at your service, an eclectic collection of feminized AI, robotic, and smart devices. This digital assistant is friendly and sometimes flirty, docile and efficient, occasionally glitchy but perpetually available. She might go by Siri, or Alexa, or inhabit Google Home. She can keep us company, order groceries, vacuum the floor, turn out the lights. A Japanese digital voice assistant--a virtual anime hologram named Hikari Azuma--sends her "master" helpful messages during the day; an American sexbot named Roxxxy takes on other kinds of household chores. In The Smart Wife, Yolande Strengers and Jenny Kennedy examine the emergence of digital devices that carry out "wifework"--domestic responsibilities that have traditionally fallen to (human) wives. They show that the principal prototype for these virtual helpers--designed in male-dominated industries--is the 1950s housewife: white, middle class, heteronormative, and nurturing, with a spick-and-span home. It's time, they say, to give the Smart Wife a reboot. What's wrong with preferring domestic assistants with feminine personalities? We like our assistants to conform to gender stereotypes--so what? For one thing, Strengers and Kennedy remind us, the design of gendered devices re-inscribes those outdated and unfounded stereotypes. Advanced technology is taking us backwards on gender equity. Strengers and Kennedy offer a Smart Wife "manifesta," proposing a rebooted Smart Wife that would promote a revaluing of femininity in society in all her glorious diversity.
Download or read book The Perfect 100 000 House written by Karrie Jacobs and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-05-29 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A home of one’s own has always been a cornerstone of the American dream, fulfilling like nothing else the desire for comfort, financial security, independence, and with a little luck, even a touch of distinctive character, or even beauty. But what we have come to regard as almost a national birthright has recently begun to elude more and more prospective homebuyers. Where housing is concerned, affordable and well-crafted rarely exist together. Or do they? For years, founding editor-in-chief of Dwell magazine and noted architecture and design critic Karrie Jacobs had been confronting this question both professionally and personally. Finally, she decided to see for herself whether it was possible to build the home of her own dreams for a reasonable sum. The Perfect $100,000 House is the story of that quest, a search that takes her from a two-week crash course in housebuilding in Vermont to a road trip of some 14,000 miles. In the course of her journey Jacobs encounters a group of intrepid and visionary architects and builders working to revolutionize the way Americans thinks about homes, about construction techniques, and about the very idea of community. By her trip’s end Jacobs, has not only had a practical and sobering education in the economics, aesthetics, and politics of homebuilding, but has been spurred to challenge her own deeply held beliefs about what constitutes an ideal home. The Perfect $100,000 House is a compelling and inspiring demonstration that we can live in homes that are sensible, modest, and beautiful.
Download or read book Smart Homes and Their Users written by Tom Hargreaves and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-10-06 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Smart home technologies promise to transform domestic comfort, convenience, security and leisure while also reducing energy use. But delivering on these potentially conflicting promises depends on how they are adopted and used in homes. This book starts by developing a new analytical framework for understanding smart homes and their users. Drawing on a range of new empirical research combining both qualitative and quantitative data, the book then explores how smart home technologies are perceived by potential users, how they can be used to link domestic energy use to common daily activities, how they may (or may not) be integrated into everyday life by actual users, and how they serve to change the nature of control within households and the home. The book concludes by synthesising a range of evidence-based insights, and posing a series of challenges for industry, policy, and research that need addressing if a smart home future is to be realised. Researchers will find this book provides useful insights into this fast-growing field
Download or read book Too Smart written by Jathan Sadowski and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2020-03-24 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who benefits from smart technology? Whose interests are served when we trade our personal data for convenience and connectivity? Smart technology is everywhere: smart umbrellas that light up when rain is in the forecast; smart cars that relieve drivers of the drudgery of driving; smart toothbrushes that send your dental hygiene details to the cloud. Nothing is safe from smartification. In Too Smart, Jathan Sadowski looks at the proliferation of smart stuff in our lives and asks whether the tradeoff—exchanging our personal data for convenience and connectivity—is worth it. Who benefits from smart technology? Sadowski explains how data, once the purview of researchers and policy wonks, has become a form of capital. Smart technology, he argues, is driven by the dual imperatives of digital capitalism: extracting data from, and expanding control over, everything and everybody. He looks at three domains colonized by smart technologies' collection and control systems: the smart self, the smart home, and the smart city. The smart self involves more than self-tracking of steps walked and calories burned; it raises questions about what others do with our data and how they direct our behavior—whether or not we want them to. The smart home collects data about our habits that offer business a window into our domestic spaces. And the smart city, where these systems have space to grow, offers military-grade surveillance capabilities to local authorities. Technology gets smart from our data. We may enjoy the conveniences we get in return (the refrigerator says we're out of milk!), but, Sadowski argues, smart technology advances the interests of corporate technocratic power—and will continue to do so unless we demand oversight and ownership of our data.
Download or read book Time Smart written by Ashley Whillans and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 111 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There's an 80 percent chance you're poor. Time poor, that is. Four out of five adults report feeling that they have too much to do and not enough time to do it. These time-poor people experience less joy each day. They laugh less. They are less healthy, less productive, and more likely to divorce. In one study, time stress produced a stronger negative effect on happiness than unemployment. How can we escape the time traps that make us feel this way and keep us from living our best lives? Time Smart is your playbook for taking back the time you lose to mindless tasks and unfulfilling chores. Author and Harvard Business School professor Ashley Whillans will give you proven strategies for improving your "time affluence." The techniques Whillans provides will free up seconds, minutes, and hours that, over the long term, become weeks and months that you can reinvest in positive, healthy activities. Time Smart doesn't stop at telling you what to do. It also shows you how to do it, helping you achieve the mindset shift that will make these activities part of your everyday regimen through assessments, checklists, and activities you can use right away. The strategies Whillans presents will help you make the shift to time-smart living and, in the process, build a happier, more fulfilling life.
Download or read book Alexa For Dummies written by Paul McFedries and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2018-11-27 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Upgrade your Echo expertise with this Dummies guide to all things Alexa Amazon's hugely popular family of Echo devices has made Alexa a household name. She can answer your questions, entertain you, and even help around the house. Alexa for Dummies is the perfect guide for Alexa users who want to get up and running with their Echo devices. From basic setup to making the most of Alexa’s powerful smart home capabilities, this is your one-stop resource to all things Alexa. Whether you’ll use Alexa to send text messages, play music, control your thermostat, look up recipes, replenish your pantry, or just search the internet for information, you’ll find detailed instructions in this fun and easy-to-understand guide. Set up and personalize your Alexa device with an Amazon account and custom settings, including your preferred Alexa voice Use Alexa to play music throughout your home, stream videos online, and meet all your entertainment needs Unlock the power of advanced features like Alexa Skills and make your Alexa accessible Turn your ordinary house into a modern smart home with advanced smart home features and Echo accessories The virtual assistant you've dreamed of is now a reality with your favorite Echo device. Let Alexa For Dummies make your wish Alexa's command.
Download or read book New New Media written by Paul Levinson and published by Pearson Educacion. This book was released on 2013 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the publisher. For more than 60 years, instructors and their students have looked to Penguin trade paperbacks for state-of-the-art scholarship, accessibility, and fair prices. Allyn & Bacon, Penguin's sister company, aims to meet those same expectations with textbooks in our series, Penguin Academics. We've created the Penguin Academics series with ease of use in mind-the books are conveniently portable and highly readable, with engaging typefaces and interior designs. Concise yet thorough in their coverage of the basics, Penguin Academics titles are ideal for use either by themselves or in combination with other books.
Download or read book Left to Our Own Devices written by Margaret E. Morris and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-12-25 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unexpected ways that individuals adapt technology to reclaim what matters to them, from working through conflict with smart lights to celebrating gender transition with selfies. We have been warned about the psychological perils of technology: distraction, difficulty empathizing, and loss of the ability (or desire) to carry on a conversation. But our devices and data are woven into our lives. We can't simply reject them. Instead, Margaret Morris argues, we need to adapt technology creatively to our needs and values. In Left to Our Own Devices, Morris offers examples of individuals applying technologies in unexpected ways—uses that go beyond those intended by developers and designers. Morris examines these kinds of personalized life hacks, chronicling the ways that people have adapted technology to strengthen social connection, enhance well-being, and affirm identity. Morris, a clinical psychologist and app creator, shows how people really use technology, drawing on interviews she has conducted as well as computer science and psychology research. She describes how a couple used smart lights to work through conflict; how a woman persuaded herself to eat healthier foods when her photographs of salads garnered “likes” on social media; how a trans woman celebrated her transition with selfies; and how, through augmented reality, a woman changed the way she saw her cancer and herself. These and the many other “off-label” adaptations described by Morris cast technology not just as a temptation that we struggle to resist but as a potential ally as we try to take care of ourselves and others. The stories Morris tells invite us to be more intentional and creative when left to our own devices.
Download or read book Get Your House Right written by Marianne Cusato and published by Sterling Publishing Company. This book was released on 2007 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even as oversized McMansions continue to elbow their way into tiny lots nationwide, a much different trend has taken shape. This return to traditional architectural principles venerates qualities that once were taken for granted in home design: structural common sense, aesthetics of form, appropriateness to a neighborhood, and even sustainability. Marianne Cusato, creator of the award-winning Katrina Cottages, has authored and illustrated this definitive guide to what makes houses look and feel right--to the eye and to the soul. She teaches us the language and grammar of classical architecture, revealing how balance, harmony, and detail all contribute to creating a home that will be loved rather than tolerated. And she takes us through the do’s and don’ts of every element of home design, from dormers to doorways to columns. Integral to the book are its hundreds of elegant line drawings--clearly rendering the varieties of lintels and cornices, arches and eaves, and displaying "avoid” and "use” versions of the same elements side by side.
Download or read book Who written by Geoff Smart and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2008-09-30 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this instant New York Times Bestseller, Geoff Smart and Randy Street provide a simple, practical, and effective solution to what The Economist calls “the single biggest problem in business today”: unsuccessful hiring. The average hiring mistake costs a company $1.5 million or more a year and countless wasted hours. This statistic becomes even more startling when you consider that the typical hiring success rate of managers is only 50 percent. The silver lining is that “who” problems are easily preventable. Based on more than 1,300 hours of interviews with more than 20 billionaires and 300 CEOs, Who presents Smart and Street’s A Method for Hiring. Refined through the largest research study of its kind ever undertaken, the A Method stresses fundamental elements that anyone can implement–and it has a 90 percent success rate. Whether you’re a member of a board of directors looking for a new CEO, the owner of a small business searching for the right people to make your company grow, or a parent in need of a new babysitter, it’s all about Who. Inside you’ll learn how to • avoid common “voodoo hiring” methods • define the outcomes you seek • generate a flow of A Players to your team–by implementing the #1 tactic used by successful businesspeople • ask the right interview questions to dramatically improve your ability to quickly distinguish an A Player from a B or C candidate • attract the person you want to hire, by emphasizing the points the candidate cares about most In business, you are who you hire. In Who, Geoff Smart and Randy Street offer simple, easy-to-follow steps that will put the right people in place for optimal success.
Download or read book Smart Card Security and Applications Second Edition written by Mike Hendry and published by Artech House. This book was released on 2001 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This extensively updated edition of the popular book offers a current overview of the ways smart cards address the computer security issues of today's varied applications. Brand-new discussions on multiapplication operating systems, computer networks, and the Internet are included to keep technical and business professionals abreast of the latest developments in this field.
Download or read book The Dutch House written by Ann Patchett and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pulitzer Prize Finalist | New York Times Bestseller | A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick | A New York Times Book Review Notable Book | TIME Magazine's 100 Must-Read Books of the Year Named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPR, The Washington Post; O: The Oprah Magazine, Real Simple, Good Housekeeping, Vogue, Refinery29, and Buzzfeed From Ann Patchett, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth, comes a powerful, richly moving story that explores the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go. The Dutch House is the story of a paradise lost, a tour de force that digs deeply into questions of inheritance, love and forgiveness, of how we want to see ourselves and of who we really are. At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves. The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakeable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures. Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.
Download or read book The House on Mango Street written by Sandra Cisneros and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-04-30 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A coming-of-age classic about a young girl growing up in Chicago • Acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught in schools and universities alike, and translated around the world—from the winner of the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. “Cisneros draws on her rich [Latino] heritage...and seduces with precise, spare prose, creat[ing] unforgettable characters we want to lift off the page. She is not only a gifted writer, but an absolutely essential one.” —The New York Times Book Review The House on Mango Street is one of the most cherished novels of the last fifty years. Readers from all walks of life have fallen for the voice of Esperanza Cordero, growing up in Chicago and inventing for herself who and what she will become. “In English my name means hope,” she says. “In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting." Told in a series of vignettes—sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes joyous—Cisneros’s masterpiece is a classic story of childhood and self-discovery and one of the greatest neighborhood novels of all time. Like Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street or Toni Morrison’s Sula, it makes a world through people and their voices, and it does so in language that is poetic and direct. This gorgeous coming-of-age novel is a celebration of the power of telling one’s story and of being proud of where you're from.
Download or read book Playing Smart written by Julian Togelius and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE FUTURE OF GAME DESIGN IN THE AGE OF AI: Can games measure intelligence? And how will artificial intelligence inform games of the future? In Playing Smart, Julian Togelius explores the connections between games and intelligence to offer a new vision of future games and game design. Video games already depend on AI. We use games to test AI algorithms, challenge our thinking, and better understand both natural and artificial intelligence. In the future, Togelius argues, game designers will be able to create smarter games that make us smarter in turn, applying advanced AI to help design games. In this book, he tells us how. Games are the past, present, and future of artificial intelligence. In 1948, Alan Turing, one of the founding fathers of computer science and artificial intelligence, handwrote a program for chess. Today we have IBM’s Deep Blue and DeepMind’s AlphaGo, and huge efforts go into developing AI that can play such arcade games as Pac-Man. Programmers continue to use games to test and develop AI, creating new benchmarks for AI while also challenging human assumptions and cognitive abilities. Game design is at heart a cognitive science, Togelius reminds us—when we play or design a game, we plan, think spatially, make predictions, move, and assess ourselves and our performance. By studying how we play and design games, Togelius writes, we can better understand how humans and machines think. AI can do more for game design than providing a skillful opponent. We can harness it to build game-playing and game-designing AI agents, enabling a new generation of AI-augmented games. With AI, we can explore new frontiers in learning and play.
Download or read book The Widow of Rose House written by Diana Biller and published by St. Martin's Griffin. This book was released on 2019-10-08 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Widow of Rose House is close to perfection and any lover of historical romance will adore this debut." - Smart Bitches Trashy Books It’s 1875, and Alva Webster is ready for a fresh start. After three years of being pilloried in the presses for fleeing her abusive husband, his sudden death allows her to return to New York where she is determined to restore a dilapidated Hyde Park mansion, and hopefully her reputation at the same time. She is decidedly not supposed to fall in love. But when a haunting at her new home threatens her careful plans, she must seek help from the eccentric and brilliant and - much to her dismay - very handsome Professor Samuel Moore. Alva doesn’t need more complications in her life, especially not a convention-flouting, scandal-raising one like Sam. Unfortunately, Sam is the only one who can help. Together, the two delve into the tragic secrets wreathing Alva’s new home while Sam attempts to unlock Alva’s history—and her heart. Set during the Gilded Age in New York City, The Widow of Rose House is a gorgeously romantic debut by Diana Biller, with an intrepid and resilient American heroine guaranteed to delight readers as she starts over and finds true love. "A chemistry-fueled debut with a bit of a ghost story, great for readers of gothic romance." - Booklist "Biller mirrors Wharton's genius for revealing the emotional gold lying beneath the Gilded Age, which motivates the novel's massive romantic turmoil." - Bookpage (Most Anticipated Romances)
Download or read book Reading for Our Lives written by Maya Payne Smart and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-08-02 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An award-winning journalist and literacy advocate provides a clear, step-by-step guide to helping your child thrive as a reader and a learner. When her child went off to school, Maya Smart was shocked to discover that a good education in America is a long shot, in ways that few parents fully appreciate. Our current approach to literacy offers too little, too late, and attempting to play catch-up when our kids get to kindergarten can no longer be our default strategy. We have to start at the top. The brain architecture for reading develops rapidly during infancy, and early language experiences are critical to building it. That means parents’ work as children’s first teachers begins from day one too—and we need deeper knowledge to play our positions. Reading for Our Lives challenges the bath-book-bed mantra and the idea that reading aloud to our kids is enough to ensure school readiness. Instead, it gives parents easy, immediate, and accessible ways to nurture language and literacy development from the start. Through personal stories, historical accounts, scholarly research, and practical tips, this book presents the life-and-death urgency of literacy, investigates inequity in reading achievement, and illuminates a path to a true, transformative education for all.
