World without history? Digital information is volatile: with it our culture can disappear but its preservation can save us

World without history? Digital information is volatile: with it our culture can disappear but its preservation can save us PDF Author: Stefano Cariolato
Publisher: Youcanprint
ISBN: 8831627074
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 453

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Book Description
In the mid-twentieth century the digital revolution began with the introduction of the first electronic computers, which were first introduced into companies and in the state bodies then they spread strongly in the private houses as personal computers; later all these computers were connected to each other by a global telecommunication network called Internet, which had a massive development at the end of the century becoming the backbone of the worldwide information circulation. At the beginning of the 21st century the digital revolution was completed and the information of any kind (texts, images, video clips and TV broadcasts, music and songs, WEB pages) started to be recorded and disseminated in digital form rather than with a traditional media (paper, film, magnetic tape), with a displacement that engaged all human activities of any type, both collective and individual. While the development of digital technology continue at an accelerated pace the problem of information retention begin to arise, what was previously mainly entrusted to printing on paper and now is in abandonment phase: printed records are increasingly transformed into digital format and the new information is generated directly in electronic form. But while a book or a letter could be read directly even centuries after their writing, digital information has a short life because of the same technological development, that makes quickly obsolete any recording by irreversibly mutating both its hardware and reading software; other recordings arethen volatile by their very nature, such as e-mails or WEB pages, even if they could host information that could be of value in the future. Moreover digital recordings are carried out in a great variety of different formats, sometimes incompatible with each other or subject themselves to obsolescence, thus unnecessarily complicating the task of preserving their content. Most part of human culture, gradually poured into electronic form, is now jeopardized, and we risk of delivering to posterity a world without history: this book describes the current situation and what is sought to do to remedy the danger.

World without history? Digital information is volatile: with it our culture can disappear but its preservation can save us

World without history? Digital information is volatile: with it our culture can disappear but its preservation can save us PDF Author: Stefano Cariolato
Publisher: Youcanprint
ISBN: 8831627074
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 453

Get Book

Book Description
In the mid-twentieth century the digital revolution began with the introduction of the first electronic computers, which were first introduced into companies and in the state bodies then they spread strongly in the private houses as personal computers; later all these computers were connected to each other by a global telecommunication network called Internet, which had a massive development at the end of the century becoming the backbone of the worldwide information circulation. At the beginning of the 21st century the digital revolution was completed and the information of any kind (texts, images, video clips and TV broadcasts, music and songs, WEB pages) started to be recorded and disseminated in digital form rather than with a traditional media (paper, film, magnetic tape), with a displacement that engaged all human activities of any type, both collective and individual. While the development of digital technology continue at an accelerated pace the problem of information retention begin to arise, what was previously mainly entrusted to printing on paper and now is in abandonment phase: printed records are increasingly transformed into digital format and the new information is generated directly in electronic form. But while a book or a letter could be read directly even centuries after their writing, digital information has a short life because of the same technological development, that makes quickly obsolete any recording by irreversibly mutating both its hardware and reading software; other recordings arethen volatile by their very nature, such as e-mails or WEB pages, even if they could host information that could be of value in the future. Moreover digital recordings are carried out in a great variety of different formats, sometimes incompatible with each other or subject themselves to obsolescence, thus unnecessarily complicating the task of preserving their content. Most part of human culture, gradually poured into electronic form, is now jeopardized, and we risk of delivering to posterity a world without history: this book describes the current situation and what is sought to do to remedy the danger.

The shortest century

The shortest century PDF Author: Stefano Cariolato
Publisher: Youcanprint
ISBN:
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Today the development of digital technology continues at an accelerated pace, but the problem of information retention arises, which previously was mainly entrusted to paper printing. But while a book or letter can be read immediately even centuries after their writing if they have resisted time, digital information still has a short life, even in the absence of the deterioration of the media used: this due to the same technological development, which quickly makes any recording obsolete by irreversibly changing both the hardware and the reading software. Other registrations are also volatile by their very nature, such as emails or web pages, although they may host information that may have value in the future. The problem is particularly relevant in this century precisely because we are at the initial stages of a new and important need, but we are not yet equipped to deal with it and we are not sufficiently aware of it. The past century has been baptized "the short century", but our present century risks being known by posterity as the "shortest century", precisely because they will not have much information about us. Preserving digital documents for their future use has not only a mere historiographical purpose, but also a concrete and irreplaceable value for future generations. Because if we don't keep the data, we can't reuse them. They are a kind of renewable resource, whose real value is in their reuse. So it's important to be at least aware of this problem, which the book tries to answer.

Engineering Economics: Decisions and Solutions from Eurasian Perspective

Engineering Economics: Decisions and Solutions from Eurasian Perspective PDF Author: Svetlana Igorevna Ashmarina
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030532771
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 715

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Book Description
This book presents the outcomes of the annual “Engineering Economics Week – 2020,” organized by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, the Institute of Management and the Institute of Market Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), the South-Russian State Polytechnic University and Samara State University of Economics, and held in online format in May 2020. Focusing on the following topics: - the globalized economy and Russian industrial enterprises: development specifics and international co-operation; - state support for the real sector of the economy; - decisions in production and project management in the context of the digital economy; - big data and big challenges in production networks and systems ; and - economic and social aspects of the innovation management: decision-making and control this book will appeal to scientists, teachers and students (bachelor’s, master’s and postgraduate) at higher education institutions, economists, specialists at research centers, managers of industrial enterprises, business professionals, and those at media centers, and development fund and consulting organizations.

Preserving Digital Information

Preserving Digital Information PDF Author: Henry Gladney
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9783642072390
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Cultural history enthusiasts have asserted the urgent need to protect digital information from imminent loss. This book describes methodology for long-term preservation of all kinds of digital documents. It justifies this methodology using 20th century theory of knowledge communication, and outlines the requirements and architecture for the software needed. The author emphasizes attention to the perspectives and the needs of end users.

Global Trends 2040

Global Trends 2040 PDF Author: National Intelligence Council
Publisher: Cosimo Reports
ISBN: 9781646794973
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 158

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Book Description
"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.

The Digital Condition

The Digital Condition PDF Author: Robert A. Wilkie
Publisher:
ISBN: 9786613299970
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
The acceleration in science, technology, communication, and production that began in the second half of the twentieth century-- developments which make up the concept of the "digital"--Has brought us to what might be the most contradictory moment in human history. The digital revolution has made it possible not only to imagine but to actually realize a world in which social inequality and poverty are vanquished. But instead these developments have led to an unprecedented level of accumulation of private profits. Rather than the end of social inequality we are witness to its global expansion. In The Digital Condition, Rob Wilkie advances a groundbreaking analysis of digital culture which argues that the digital geist--which has its genealogy in such concepts as the "body without organs," "spectrality," and "différance"--has obscured the implications of class difference with the phantom of a digital divide.

Always Already New

Always Already New PDF Author: Lisa Gitelman
Publisher: MIT Press (MA)
ISBN:
Category : Communication and technology
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
In Always Already New, Lisa Gitelman explores the newness of new media while she asks what it means to do media history. Using the examples of early recorded sound and digital networks, Gitelman challenges readers to think about the ways that media work as the simultaneous subjects and instruments of historical inquiry. Presenting original case studies of Edison's first phonographs and the Pentagon's first distributed digital network, the ARPANET, Gitelman points suggestively toward similarities that underlie the cultural definition of records (phonographic and not) at the end of the nineteenth century and the definition of documents (digital and not) at the end of the twentieth. As a result, Always Already Newspeaks to present concerns about the humanities as much as to the emergent field of new media studies. Records and documents are kernels of humanistic thought, after all--part of and party to the cultural impulse to preserve and interpret. Gitelman's argument suggests inventive contexts for "humanities computing" while also offering a new perspective on such traditional humanities disciplines as literary history. Making extensive use of archival sources, Gitelman describes the ways in which recorded sound and digitally networked text each emerged as local anomalies that were yet deeply embedded within the reigning logic of public life and public memory. In the end Gitelman turns to the World Wide Web and asks how the history of the Web is already being told, how the Web might also resist history, and how using the Web might be producing the conditions of its own historicity.

Sophie's World

Sophie's World PDF Author: Jostein Gaarder
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1466804270
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 544

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Book Description
One day Sophie comes home from school to find two questions in her mail: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" Before she knows it she is enrolled in a correspondence course with a mysterious philosopher. Thus begins Jostein Gaarder's unique novel, which is not only a mystery, but also a complete and entertaining history of philosophy.

Advanced Digital Preservation

Advanced Digital Preservation PDF Author: David Giaretta
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9783642168086
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 510

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Book Description
There is growing recognition of the need to address the fragility of digital information, on which our society heavily depends for smooth operation in all aspects of daily life. This has been discussed in many books and articles on digital preservation, so why is there a need for yet one more? Because, for the most part, those other publications focus on documents, images and webpages – objects that are normally rendered to be simply displayed by software to a human viewer. Yet there are clearly many more types of digital objects that may need to be preserved, such as databases, scientific data and software itself. David Giaretta, Director of the Alliance for Permanent Access, and his contributors explain why the tools and techniques used for preserving rendered objects are inadequate for all these other types of digital objects, and they provide the concepts, techniques and tools that are needed. The book is structured in three parts. The first part is on theory, i.e., the concepts and techniques that are essential for preserving digitally encoded information. The second part then shows practice, i.e., the use and validation of these tools and techniques. Finally, the third part concludes by addressing how to judge whether money is being well spent, in terms of effectiveness and cost sharing. Various examples of digital objects from many sources are used to explain the tools and techniques presented. The presentation style mainly aims at practitioners in libraries, archives and industry who are either directly responsible for preservation or who need to prepare for audits of their archives. Researchers in digital preservation and developers of preservation tools and techniques will also find valuable practical information here. Researchers creating digitally encoded information of all kinds will also need to be aware of these topics so that they can help to ensure that their data is usable and can be valued by others now and in the future. To further assist the reader, the book is supported by many hours of videos and presentations from the CASPAR project and by a set of open source software.

Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States

Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309142393
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
Scores of talented and dedicated people serve the forensic science community, performing vitally important work. However, they are often constrained by lack of adequate resources, sound policies, and national support. It is clear that change and advancements, both systematic and scientific, are needed in a number of forensic science disciplines to ensure the reliability of work, establish enforceable standards, and promote best practices with consistent application. Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward provides a detailed plan for addressing these needs and suggests the creation of a new government entity, the National Institute of Forensic Science, to establish and enforce standards within the forensic science community. The benefits of improving and regulating the forensic science disciplines are clear: assisting law enforcement officials, enhancing homeland security, and reducing the risk of wrongful conviction and exoneration. Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States gives a full account of what is needed to advance the forensic science disciplines, including upgrading of systems and organizational structures, better training, widespread adoption of uniform and enforceable best practices, and mandatory certification and accreditation programs. While this book provides an essential call-to-action for congress and policy makers, it also serves as a vital tool for law enforcement agencies, criminal prosecutors and attorneys, and forensic science educators.