Issues of Information

The first time that Apple, Google and Microsoft found themselves sharing the same digital space was 1998. They were radically different companies and they would subsequently fight a series of pitched battles for control of different parts of the digital landscape. They could not know of the battles to come. But they would be world-changing.This new edition of Digital Wars looks at each of these battles in turn. Accessible and comprehensive, it analyses the very different cultures of the three companies and assesses exactly who are the victors on each front. Thoroughly updated to include information on the latest developments and rising competitors Samsung, it also include a completely new chapter on how China moved from being the assembly plant for music players and smartphones, to becoming the world's biggest smartphone business.

An eye-opening account of how the hidden rise of personalization on the Internet is controlling-and limiting-the information we consume. In December 2009, Google began customizing its search results for each user. Instead of giving you the most broadly popular result, Google now tries to predict what you are most likely to click on. According to MoveOn.org board president Eli Pariser, Google's change in policy is symptomatic of the most significant shift to take place on the Web in recent years-the rise of personalization. In this groundbreaking investigation of the new hidden Web, Pariser uncovers how this growing trend threatens to control how we consume and share information as a society-and reveals what we can do about it. Though the phenomenon has gone largely undetected until now, personalized filters are sweeping the Web, creating individual universes of information for each of us. Facebook-the primary news source for an increasing number of Americans-prioritizes the links it believes will appeal to you so that if you are a liberal, you can expect to see only progressive links. Even an old-media bastion like The Washington Post devotes the top of its home page to a news feed with the links your Facebook friends are sharing. Behind the scenes a burgeoning industry of data companies is tracking your personal information to sell to advertisers, from your political leanings to the color you painted your living room to the hiking boots you just browsed on Zappos. In a personalized world, we will increasingly be typed and fed only news that is pleasant, familiar, and confirms our beliefs-and because these filters are invisible, we won't know what is being hidden from us. Our past interests will determine what we are exposed to in the future, leaving less room for the unexpected encounters that spark creativity, innovation, and the democratic exchange of ideas. While we all worry that the Internet is eroding privacy or shrinking our attention spans, Pariser uncovers a more pernicious and far- reaching trend on the Internet and shows how we can- and must-change course. With vivid detail and remarkable scope, The Filter Bubble reveals how personalization undermines the Internet's original purpose as an open platform for the spread of ideas and could leave us all in an isolated, echoing world.

Internet politics & the computer science of google -- Google search returns on ballot measures -- Click behavior and direct democracy -- Learning happens : political knowledge and three ballot measures -- Internet research and intellectually-secure decisions in direct democracy -- Real-world applications : does google use correlate with real-world political behavior?

What did you do before Google? The rise of Google as the dominant Internet search provider reflects a generationally-inflected notion that "everything" that matters is now on the Web, and "should," in the moral sense of the verb, be accessible through search. In this theoretically nuanced study of search technology s broader implications for knowledge production and social relations, the authors shed light on a culture of search in which our increasing reliance on search engines influences not only the way we navigate, classify, and evaluate Web content, but also how we think about ourselves and the world around us, online and off. Ken Hillis, Michael Petit, and Kylie Jarrett seek to understand the ascendancy of search and its naturalization by historicizing and contextualizing Google s dominance of the search industry, and suggest that the contemporary culture of search is inextricably bound up with a metaphysical longing to manage, order, and categorize all knowledge. Calling upon this nexus between political economy and metaphysics, "Google and the Culture of Search "explores what is at stake for an increasingly networked culture in which search technology is a site of knowledge and power. "

From Google search to self-driving cars to human longevity, is Alphabet creating a neoteric Garden of Eden or Bentham's Panopticon? Will King Solomon's challenge supersede the Turing test for artificial intelligence? Can transhumanism mitigate existential threats to humankind? These are some of the overarching questions in this book, which explores the impact of information awareness on humanity starting from the Book of Genesis to the Royal Library of Alexandria in the 3rd century BC to the modern day of Google Search, IBM Watson, and Wolfram|Alpha. The book also covers Search Engine Optimization, Google AdWords, Google Maps, Google Local Search, and what every business leader must know about digital transformation. "Search is curiosity, and that will never be done," said Google's first female engineer and Yahoo's sixth CEO Marissa Mayer.  The truth is out there; we just need to know how to Google it!

“Google is a champion of cultural democracy, but without culture and without democracy.” In this witty and polemical critique the philosopher Barbara Cassin takes aim at Google and our culture of big data. Enlisting her formidable knowledge of the rhetorical tradition, Cassin demolishes the Google myth of a “good” tech company and its “democracy of clicks,” laying bare the philosophical poverty and political naiveté that underwrites its founding slogans: “Organize the world’s information,” and “Don’t be evil.” For Cassin, this conjunction of globalizing knowledge and moral imperative is frighteningly similar to the way American demagogues justify their own universalizing mission before the world.While sensitive to the possibilities of technology and to Google’s playful appeal, Cassin shows what is lost when a narrow worship of information becomes dogma, such that research comes to mean data mining and other languages become provincial “flavors” folded into an impoverished Globish, or global English.

"Google can be an incredibly powerful tool for research, but the top-of-the-page results are seldom the most beneficial to library users and students, and many of the search engine's most useful features are hidden behind its famously simple interface. Burns and Sauers reveal the secrets of effective Google searches in this invaluable resource showing how to get the most out of the service, with: An overview of all the tool's search services, including Image, Maps, News, Blogs, Discussions, Scholar, Patents, and Books; Ready-to-use instructions on how to go beyond the simple search box and top results to get library users the answers they need, fast; Straightforward guidance on using filters to refine search results, with examples of common searches like images with Creative Commons licenses, news searches set for a date range or into an archive, and videos with closed captioning; An explanation of the bibliography manager feature of Google Scholar, which allows students and researchers to build bibliographies with ease, and Tips for configuring Safe Search on workstations in children's departments and schools. Copious screenshots walk readers through each topic step by step, making this a true how-to guide for everyone who uses Google."

"As Google Apps and Chromebooks become the #1 school LMS and device, more and more teachers need support with integrating this complex suite of tools soundlessly with instruction. This book will help 6-8 classroom teachers become familiar with the suite of Google tools, and help them learn how to use these tools to support student learning, integrate 21st century skills, and design standards-based lessons that thoughtfully integrate technology. The book will provide meaningful lesson plans that will allow students to create, collaborate, and share their work. The book offers step-by-step tutorials on how to use the Google Apps for Education suite, in addition to providing classroom examples and teaching tips"

In the beginning, the World Wide Web was exciting and open to the point of anarchy, a vast and intimidating repository of unindexed confusion. Into this creative chaos came Google with its dazzling mission--"To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible"--and its much-quoted motto, "Don't be evil." In this provocative book, Siva Vaidhyanathan examines the ways we have used and embraced Google--and the growing resistance to its expansion across the globe. He exposes the dark side of our Google fantasies, raising red flags about issues of intellectual property and the much-touted Google Book Search. He assesses Google's global impact, particularly in China, and explains the insidious effect of Googlization on the way we think. Finally, Vaidhyanathan proposes the construction of an Internet ecosystem designed to benefit the whole world and keep one brilliant and powerful company from falling into the "evil" it pledged to avoid.

Google Executive Chairman and ex-CEO Eric Schmidt and former SVP of Products Jonathan Rosenberg came to Google over a decade ago as proven technology executives. At the time, the company was already well-known for doing things differently, reflecting the visionary--and frequently contrarian--principles of founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. If Eric and Jonathan were going to succeed, they realized they would have to relearn everything they thought they knew about management and business. Today, Google is a global icon that regularly pushes the boundaries of innovation in a variety of fields. HOW GOOGLE WORKS is an entertaining, page-turning primer containing lessons that Eric and Jonathan learned as they helped build the company. The authors explain how technology has shifted the balance of power from companies to consumers, and that the only way to succeed in this ever-changing landscape is to create superior products and attract a new breed of multifaceted employees whom Eric and Jonathan dub "smart creatives." Covering topics including corporate culture, strategy, talent, decision-making, communication, innovation, and dealing with disruption, the authors illustrate management maxims ("Consensus requires dissension," "Exile knaves but fight for divas," "Think 10X, not 10%") with numerous insider anecdotes from Google's history, many of which are shared here for the first time. In an era when everything is speeding up, the best way for businesses to succeed is to attract smart-creative people and give them an environment where they can thrive at scale. HOW GOOGLE WORKS explains how to do just that.

Written with full cooperation from top management, including cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, this is the inside story behind Google, the most successful and most admired technology company of our time, told by one of our best technology writers. Few companies in history have ever been as successful and as admired as Google, the company that has transformed the Internet and become an indispensable part of our lives. How has Google done it? Veteran technology reporter Steven Levy was granted unprecedented access to the company, and in this revelatory book he takes readers inside Google headquarters--the Googleplex--to show how Google works. While they were still students at Stanford, Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin revolutionized Internet search. They followed this brilliant innovation with another, as two of Google's earliest employees found a way to do what no one else had: make billions of dollars from Internet advertising. With this cash cow, Google was able to expand dramatically and take on other transformative projects: more efficient data centers, open-source cell phones, free Internet video (YouTube), cloud computing, digitizing books, and much more. The key to Google's success in all these businesses, Levy reveals, is its engineering mind-set and adoption of such Internet values as speed, openness, experimentation, and risk taking. After its unapologetically elitist approach to hiring, Google pampers its engineers--free food and dry cleaning, on-site doctors and masseuses--and gives them all the resources they need to succeed. Even today, with a workforce of more than 23,000, Larry Page signs off on every hire. But has Google lost its innovative edge? With its newest initiative, social networking, Google is chasing a successful competitor for the first time. Some employees are leaving the company for smaller, nimbler start-ups. Can the company that famously decided not to be evil still compete? No other book has ever turned Google inside out as Levy does with In the Plex.

Teaching Google Scholar in your library instructional sessions can increase students' information and digital literacy skills. Students' familiarity with Google Scholar's interface works to the instructor's advantage and allows more time to address students' information needs and teach foundational information literacy skills and less time teaching a new database with a less-intuitive database interface. Teaching Google Scholar: A Practical Guide for Librarians will illustrate instructional methods and incorporate step-by-step guides and examples for teaching Google Scholar. It begins with providing you with essential background: What Google Scholar is How to set up Google Scholar using OpenURL How to design Google Scholar instructional sessions How to incorporate active learning activities using Google Scholar After reading it, you will be ready to teach students critical skills including how to: Use specific Google Scholar search operators Incorporate search logic Extract citation data, generate citations, and save citations to Google's My Library and/or a citation management program Use Google Scholar tools- including "cited by," "alerts," "library links," and "library search" Google Scholar is a powerful research tool and will only become more popular in the coming years. Learning how to properly teach students how to utilize this search engine in their research will greatly benefit them in their college career and help promote life-long learning. Google Scholar instruction is a must in today's modern information literacy classroom.