Summer Reading for Technophiles

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July 25, 2005 (Computerworld) -- Let's face it: An evocative whiff of cocoa butter can get to even the most serious technology workers among us, inspiring them to ease up just a bit. Perhaps only a few will hunker down on a beach towel with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, but most will be ready for a break from service manuals and all those 5-pound tomes on Linux clustering or Windows forensics.
The following titles should have appeal for the techno-savvy but are intended to provide something more entertaining or speculative than the customary deep dive into a sea of bits and bytes. Two of the books were published recently, but, as with any summer reading list, an old favorite is here as well, ready to be revisited or discovered for the first time.
• High-Tech Crimes Revealed: Cyberwar Stories From the Digital Front, by Steven Branigan (Addison-Wesley, 412 pages, $29.99). Branigan has pulled off a very difficult balancing act. His behind-the-scenes descriptions of investigations into cybercrimes have enough dark detail to keep any reader turning the pages, engrossed in how the cases were cracked and the perps brought to justice. But High-Tech Crimes Revealed is also intended to be instructive, and through a variety of devices - clear explanations of criminal methods, intriguing statistics, charts, diagrams and tips boxes - it succeeds. Most readers will be entertained and gain a clearer understanding of cybercrime and the urgent need to stop it.

• It's Alive: The Coming Convergence of Information, Biology and Business, by Christopher Myer and Stan Davis (Crown Business, 288 pages, $27.50). Initially published in 2003, this certainly wasn't the first book to apply concepts from biology and other natural sciences to IT and business, but it remains one of the most readable and provocative. It's Alive is a 10-year look into the future toward what the authors call the "molecular economy." The book purports to be a management guide for the business environment created by that new economy, an environment Myer and Davis have dubbed the "adaptive enterprise." But its most interesting passages deal with the science from which it builds its metaphors.
Two years into the decade the authors were speculating about, some of their observations seem a bit overheated, and the book covers so much ground so quickly that it can trigger giddiness instead of thoughtfulness. But there's certainly enough substance here to lure the reader to check in again in 2013 to see how clear Myer and Davis' vision turned out to be.

• The Silicon Eye, by George Gilder (Atlas Books, 318 pages, $27.50). Gilder's silicon sagas add more than a little extra drama to tales of technologists at work, and his sweeping statements about technology and society are sometimes hard to swallow, but he knows how to spin a yarn.
The Silicon Eye tells the story of Foveon Inc., a start-up that uses research that blends IT, optics and neurobiology in an effort to build a new kind of digital camera. Among the cast of real-life characters are Michelle Mohowald, the young scientist upon whose ideas the company rests, and Carver Mead, the legendary Caltech electronics guru. Their battle to make a dent in the market dominated by Japanese corporate giants is engrossing and instructive. Find a shady spot and enjoy yourself.

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