Steve Lohr

In Go To , Steve Lohr chronicles the history of software from the early days of complex mathematical codes mastered by a few thousand to today's era of user-friendly software and over six million professional programmers worldwide. Lohr maps out the unique seductions of programming, and gives us an intimate portrait of the peculiar kind of genius that is drawn to this blend of art, science, and engineering, introducing us to the movers and shakers of the 1950s and the open-source movement of today. With original reporting and deft storytelling, Steve Lohr shows us how software transformed the world, and what it holds in store for our future.

Steve Lohr, a technology reporter for the New York Times , chronicles the rise of Big Data, addressing cutting-edge business strategies and examining the dark side of a data-driven world. Coal, iron ore, and oil were the key productive assets that fueled the Industrial Revolution. Today, Data is the vital raw material of the information economy. The explosive abundance of this digital asset, more than doubling every two years, is creating a new world of opportunity and challenge. Data-ism is about this next phase, in which vast, Internet-scale data sets are used for discovery and prediction in virtually every field. It is a journey across this emerging world with people, illuminating narrative examples, and insights. It shows that, if exploited, this new revolution will change the way decisions are made—relying more on data and analysis, and less on intuition and experience—and transform the nature of leadership and management. Lohr explains how individuals and institutions will need to exploit, protect, and manage their data to stay competitive in the coming years. Filled with rich examples and anecdotes of the various ways in which the rise of Big Data is affecting everyday life it raises provocative questions about policy and practice that have wide implications for all of our lives.

In the beginning, there was the computer. And it was big. As big as a room. Sometimes as big as a house. Early computers required teams of white-coated scientists to keep them running, yet one of those giant behemoths could not match the computing power of a single microchip today. From the first massive computers to today's nanotechnology, DIGITAL REVOLUTIONARIES offers a guided tour of the history of computers and a celebration of the human ingenuity that led the world from ENIAC to iMAC.