Books about Ambient from Amazon.com

How do you find your way in an age of information overload? How can you filter streams of complex information to pull out only what you want? Why does it matter how information is structured when Google seems to magically bring up the right answer to your questions? What does it mean to be "findable" in this day and age? This eye-opening new book examines the convergence of information and connectivity. Written by Peter Morville, author of the groundbreaking "Information Architecture for the World Wide Web," the book defines our current age as a state of unlimited findability. In other words, anyone can find anything at any time. Complete navigability.

Morville discusses the Internet, GIS, and other network technologies that are coming together to make unlimited findability possible. He explores how the melding of these innovations impacts society, since Web access is now a standard requirement for successful people and businesses. But before he does that, Morville looks back at the history of wayfinding and human evolution, suggesting that our fear of being lost has driven us to create maps, charts, and now, the mobile Internet.

The book's central thesis is that information literacy, information architecture, and usability are all critical components of this new world order. Hand in hand with that is the contention that only by planning and designing the best possible software, devices, and Internet, will we be able to maintain this connectivity in the future. Morville's book is highlighted with full color illustrations and rich examples that bring his prose to life.

"Ambient Findability" doesn't preach or pretend to know all the answers. Instead, it presentsresearch, stories, and examples in support of its novel ideas. Are we truly at a critical point in our evolution where the quality of our digital networks will dictate how we behave as a species? Is findability indeed the primary key to a successful global marketplace in the 21st century and beyond. Peter Morville takes you on a thought-provoking tour of these memes and more -- ideas that will not only fascinate but will stir your creativity in practical ways that you can apply to your work immediately.

""A lively, enjoyable and informative tour of a topic that's only going to become more important.""

--David Weinberger, Author, "Small Pieces Loosely Joined" and "The Cluetrain Manifesto"

""I envy the young scholar who finds this inventive book, by whatever strange means are necessary. The future isn't just unwritten--it's unsearched.""

--Bruce Sterling, Writer, Futurist, and Co-Founder, The Electronic Frontier Foundation

""Search engine marketing is the hottest thing in Internet business, and deservedly so. Ambient Findability puts SEM into a broader context and provides deeper insights into human behavior. This book will help you grow your online business in a world where being found is not at all certain.""

--Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D., Author, "Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity"

""Information that's hard to find will remain information that's hardly found--from one of the fathers of the discipline of information architecture, and one of its most experienced practitioners, come penetrating observations on why findability is elusive and how the act of seeking changes us.""

--Steve Papa, Founder and Chairman, Endeca

""Whether it's a fact or a figure, a person or a place, Peter Morville knows how to make it findable. Morville explores the possibilities of a world where everything can always be found--and the challenges in getting there--in this wide-ranging, thought-provoking book.""

--Jesse James Garrett, Author, "The Elements of User Experience"

""It is easy to assume that current searching of the World Wide Web is the last word in finding and using information. Peter Morville shows us that search engines are just the beginning. Skillfully weaving together information science research with his own extensive experience, he develops for the reader a feeling for the near future when information is truly findable all around us. There are immense implications, and Morville's lively and humorous writing brings them home.""

--Marcia J. Bates, Ph.D., University of California Los Angeles

""I've always known that Peter Morville was smart. After reading Ambient Findability, I now know he's (as we say in Boston) wicked smart. This is a timely book that will have lasting effects on how we create our future."

--Jared Spool, Founding Principal, User Interface Engineering

""In Ambient Findability, Peter Morville has put his mind and keyboard on the pulse of the electronic noosphere. With tangible examples and lively writing, he lays out the challenges and wonders of finding our way in cyberspace, and explains the mutually dependent evolution of our changing world and selves. This is a must read for everyone and a practical guide for designers.""

--Gary Marchionini, Ph.D., University of North Carolina

""Find this book! Anyone interested in makinginformation easier to find, or understanding how finding and being found is changing, will find this thoroughly researched, engagingly written, literate, insightful and very, very cool book well worth their time. Myriad examples from rich and varied domains and a valuable idea on nearly every page. Fun to read, too!"

--Joseph Janes, Ph.D., Founder, Internet Public Library.
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The new edition of this perennial bestseller is the ideal initiation to 3D and Maya. Starting with the basics, it builds from the ground up, combining straightforward text with practical examples that make it fun and easy to learn Maya's core tools while introducing the latest Maya 2008 features. Follow clear-cut, step-by-step lessons while you learn by doing using a wealth of hands-on files provided on the CD. You'll also find compelling examples in the full-color insert..
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Over the course of his long directing career, Woody Allen has portrayed contemporary American life with an unmistakable mixture of irony, neurotic obsession, and humor. Woody Allen on Woody Allen is a unique self-portrait of this uncompromising filmmaker that offers a revealing account of his life and work. In a series of rare, in-depth interviews, Allen brings us onto the sets and behind the scenes of all his films. Since its original publication, Woody Allen on Woody Allen has been the primary source of Allen's own thoughts on his work, childhood, favorite films, and inspirations. Now updated with one hundred pages of new material that brings us up to his Hollywood Ending, Woody Allen on Woody Allen is a required addition to any cinephile's library..
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Your body is a self-healing instrument. If you give it a chance it will always tend toward homeostasis or healthful balance. Sound healer Steven Halpern uses soothing and free floating keyboard compositions to draw the body into this state of balance and harmony. Combining artistic inspoiration, sensitivity, and the sophisticated sound technology.Music for Unwinding was created by music therapist and award winning musician Dr. Joseph Nagler. Composed using specific tempi, rhythms and pacing, and performed by an ensemble of world-renowned musicians, these soothing melodies will freee you to unwind and let go fof the stress of the day. Piano, violin, percussion, flute, guitars and bass all create a lush blend of deeply relaxing music that will peacefully resonate within your body..
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In Ecology without Nature, Timothy Morton argues that the chief stumbling block to environmental thinking is the image of nature itself. Ecological writers propose a new worldview, but their very zeal to preserve the natural world leads them away from the "nature" they revere. The problem is a symptom of the ecological catastrophe in which we are living. Morton sets out a seeming paradox: to have a properly ecological view, we must relinquish the idea of nature once and for all.

Ecology without Nature investigates our ecological assumptions in a way that is provocative and deeply engaging. Ranging widely in eighteenth-century through contemporary philosophy, culture, and history, he explores the value of art in imagining environmental projects for the future. Morton develops a fresh vocabulary for reading "environmentality" in artistic form as well as content, and traces the contexts of ecological constructs through the history of capitalism. From John Clare to John Cage, from Kierkegaard to Kristeva, from The Lord of the Rings to electronic life forms, Ecology without Nature widens our view of ecological criticism, and deepens our understanding of ecology itself. Instead of trying to use an idea of nature to heal what society has damaged, Morton sets out a radical new form of ecological criticism: "dark ecology."

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Black Solitaire w/Knife Cavity.
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This text traces the evolution of a culture, from the moment when Debussy first heard Javanese music at the Paris Exposition in 1889, through Eric Satie and Jimi Hendrix to the sounds of war, machines and the new digital revolution..
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Although we tend to think of television primarily as a household fixture, TV monitors outside the home are widespread: in bars, laundromats, and stores; conveying flight arrival and departure times in airports; uniting crowds at sports events and allaying boredom in waiting rooms; and helping to pass the time in workplaces of all kinds. In Ambient Television Anna McCarthy explores the significance of this pervasive phenomenon, tracing the forms of conflict, commerce, and community that television generates outside the home.
Discussing the roles television has played in different institutions from 1945 to the present day, McCarthy draws on a wide array of sources. These include retail merchandising literature, TV industry trade journals, and journalistic discussions of public viewing, as well as the work of cultural geographers, architectural theorists, media scholars, and anthropologists. She also uses photography as a research tool, documenting the uses and meanings of television sets in the built environment, and focuses on such locations as the tavern and the department store to show how television is used to support very different ideas about gender, class, and consumption. Turning to contemporary examples, McCarthy discusses practices such as Turner Private Networks’ efforts to transform waiting room populations into advertising audiences and the use of point-of-sale video that influences brand visibility and consumer behavior. Finally, she inquires into the activist potential of out-of-home television through a discussion of the video practices of two contemporary artists in everyday public settings.
Scholars and students of cultural, visual, urban, American, film, and television studies will be interested in this thought-provoking, interdisciplinary book..
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Ambient intelligence (AI) refers to a developing technology that will increasingly make our everyday environment sensitive and responsive to our presence. The AI vision requires technology invisibly embedded in our everyday surroundings, present whenever we need it that will lead to the seamless integration of lighting, sounds, vision, domestic appliances, and personal healthcare products to enhance our living experience. Written for the non-specialist seeking an authoritative but accessible overview of this interdisciplinary field, True Visions explains how the devices making up the AI world will operate collectively using information and intelligence hidden in the wireless network connecting them. Expert contributions address key AI components such as smart materials and textiles, system architecture, mobile computing, broadband communication, and underlying issues of human-environment interactions. It seeks to unify the perspectives of scientists from diverse backgrounds ranging from the physics of materials [here I deleted 'science'] to the aesthetics of industrial design as it describes the emergence of ambient intelligence, one of today’s most compelling areas of innovation.

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