Digital Da Vinci

“Science is art,” said Regina Dugan, senior executive at Google and former director of DARPA. “It is the process of creating something that never exists before. ... It makes us ask new questions about ourselves, others; about ethics, the future.” This second volume of the Digital Da Vinci book series leads the discussions on the world’s first computer art in the 1950s and the actualization of Star Trek’s holodeck in the future with the help of artificial intelligence and cyborgs. In this book, Gavin Sade describes experimental creative practices that bring together arts, science and technology in imaginative ways; Mine Özkar expounds visual computation for good designs based on repetition and variation; Raffaella Folgieri, Claudio Lucchiari, Marco Granato and Daniele Grechi introduce BrainArt, a brain-computer interface that allows users to create drawings using their own cerebral rhythms; Nathan Cohen explores artificially created spaces that enhance spatial awareness and challenge our perception of what we encounter; Keith Armstrong discusses embodied experiences that affect the mind and body of participating audiences; Diomidis Spinellis uses Etoys and Squeak in a scientific experiment to teach the concept of physical computing; Benjamin Cowley explains the massively multiplayer online game “Green My Place” aimed at achieving behavior transformation in energy awareness; Robert Niewiadomski and Dennis Anderson portray 3-D manufacturing as the beginning of common creativity revolution; Stephen Barrass takes 3-D printing to another dimension by fabricating an object from a sound recording; Mari Velonaki examines the element of surprise and touch sensing in human-robot interaction; and Roman Danylak surveys the media machines in light of Marshall McLuhan’s dictum “the medium is the message.” Digital Da Vinci: Computers in the Arts and Sciences is dedicated to polymathic education and interdisciplinary studies in the digital age empowered by computer science. Educators and researchers ought to encourage the new generation of scholars to become as well rounded as a Renaissance man or woman.

The Digital Da Vinci book series opens with the interviews of music mogul Quincy Jones, MP3 inventor Karlheinz Brandenburg, Tommy Boy founder Tom Silverman and entertainment attorney Jay L. Cooper. A strong supporter of science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs in schools, The Black Eyed Peas founding member will.i.am announced in July 2013 his plan to study computer science. Leonardo da Vinci, the epitome of a Renaissance man, was an Italian polymath at the turn of the 16th century. Since the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, the division of labor has brought forth specialization in the workforce and university curriculums. The endangered species of polymaths is facing extinction. Computer science has come to the rescue by enabling practitioners to accomplish more than ever in the field of music. In this book, Newton Lee recounts his journey in executive producing a Billboard-charting song like managing agile software development; M. Nyssim Lefford expounds producing and its effect on vocal recordings; Dennis Reidsma, Mustafa Radha and Anton Nijholt survey the field of mediated musical interaction and musical expression; Isaac Schankler, Elaine Chew and Alexandre François describe improvising with digital auto-scaffolding; Shlomo Dubnov and Greg Surges explain the use of musical algorithms in machine listening and composition; Juan Pablo Bello discusses machine listening of music; Stephen and Tim Barrass make smart things growl, purr and sing; Raffaella Folgieri, Mattia Bergomi and Simone Castellani examine EEG-based brain-computer interface for emotional involvement in games through music and last but not least, Kai Ton Chau concludes the book with computer and music pedagogy. Digital Da Vinci: Computers in Music is dedicated to polymathic education and interdisciplinary studies in the digital age empowered by computer science. Educators and researchers ought to encourage the new generation of scholars to become as well rounded as a Renaissance man or woman.

For the first time, all four Robert Langdon thrillers are now available as one ebook bundle. If you haven't read a Dan Brown yet, now's the time. ANGELS AND DEMONS The countdown to oblivion has started - who will stop the clock? A famous scientist is found dead, a mysterious symbol burned into his skin. Many miles away in Rome, the world’s cardinals gather to elect a new pope. Little do they know that beneath their feet, a vast bomb has started to tick. Professor Robert Langdon must work out the link between these two seemingly unconnected events if he is stop the Vatican being blown sky high. THE DA VINCI CODE The race to uncover the oldest secret has begun . . . An eminent man is brutally murdered in the world’s most famous museum. Around his body are a ring of codes, hastily drawn in blood. He died to protect a long-kept secret which Professor Robert Langdon must now uncover. It will be a race against time to decipher this final message. Can he get there before the killers do? THE LOST SYMBOL To save a life, you must first crack the code . . . A mysterious invitation brings Professor Robert Langdon to Washington DC. But all is not as it seems in this powerful city. An ancient organization plans to reassert itself. And he is the only man standing in its way. If he is to prevent a terrible plan being executed, Langdon must decipher a series of increasingly bloody clues. But first he has to make sure he stays alive . . . INFERNO The world is in danger - who will save it? Robert Langdon wakes up in a Florence hospital with no clue how he got there. But another attack on his life makes it very clear – someone wants him dead. And fast. To survive, Langdon must work out who it is. And then he must answer the next question – why?

The #1 New York Times bestseller from Walter Isaacson brings Leonardo da Vinci to life in this exciting new biography that is “a study in creativity: how to define it, how to achieve it…Most important, it is a powerful story of an exhilarating mind and life” (The New Yorker). Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo da Vinci’s astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson “deftly reveals an intimate Leonardo” (San Francisco Chronicle) in a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo’s genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy. He produced the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry. He explored the math of optics, showed how light rays strike the cornea, and produced illusions of changing perspectives in The Last Supper. His ability to stand at the crossroads of the humanities and the sciences, made iconic by his drawing of Vitruvian Man, made him history’s most creative genius. In the “luminous” (Daily Beast) Leonardo da Vinci, Isaacson describes how Leonardo’s delight at combining diverse passions remains the ultimate recipe for creativity. So, too, does his ease at being a bit of a misfit: illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted, and at times heretical. His life should remind us of the importance to be imaginative and, like talented rebels in any era, to think different. Here, da Vinci “comes to life in all his remarkable brilliance and oddity in Walter Isaacson’s ambitious new biography…a vigorous, insightful portrait” (The Washington Post).

#1 WORLDWIDE BESTSELLER • While in Paris, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is awakened by a phone call in the dead of the night. The elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum, his body covered in baffling symbols. “Blockbuster perfection.... A gleefully erudite suspense novel.” —The New York Times “A pulse-quickening, brain-teasing adventure.” —People As Langdon and gifted French cryptologist Sophie Neveu sort through the bizarre riddles, they are stunned to discover a trail of clues hidden in the works of Leonardo da Vinci—clues visible for all to see and yet ingeniously disguised by the painter. Even more startling, the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion—a secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci—and he guarded a breathtaking historical secret. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle—while avoiding the faceless adversary who shadows their every move—the explosive, ancient truth will be lost forever.

The murder of a world-famous physicist raises fears that the Illuminati are operating again after centuries of silence, and religion professor Robert Langdon is called in to assist with the case.

Before the multi-million, runaway bestseller The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown set his razor-sharp research and storytelling skills on the most powerful intelligence organization on earth--the National Security Agency (NSA)--in this thrilling novel, Digital Fortress. When the NSA's invincible code-breaking machine encounters a mysterious code it cannot break, the agency calls its head cryptographer, Susan Fletcher, a brilliant and beautiful mathematician. What she uncovers sends shock waves through the corridors of power. The NSA is being held hostage...not by guns or bombs, but by a code so ingeniously complex that if released it would cripple U.S. intelligence. Caught in an accelerating tempest of secrecy and lies, Susan Fletcher battles to save the agency she believes in. Betrayed on all sides, she finds herself fighting not only for her country but for her life, and in the end, for the life of the man she loves. From the underground hallways of power to the skyscrapers of Tokyo to the towering cathedrals of Spain, a desperate race unfolds. It is a battle for survival--a crucial bid to destroy a creation of inconceivable genius...an impregnable code-writing formula that threatens to obliterate the post-cold war balance of power. Forever.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries, ICADL 2006, held in Kyoto, Japan in November 2006. The 46 revised full papers, 14 revised short papers, and 6 poster papers include coverage of information extraction, information retrieval, metadata, architectures for digital libraries and archives, ontologies, information seeking, cultural heritage and e-learning.