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BestsellerE-book
Author Hu, Tung-Hui, 1978- author.

Title A prehistory of the Cloud / Tung-Hui Hu.

Publication Info. Cambridge : MIT Press Ltd, 2015.

Item Status

Description 1 online resource (232 pages)
Physical Medium polychrome
Description text file
Contents 1. The shape of the network -- 2. Time-sharing virtualization -- 3. Data centers and data bunkers -- 4. Seeing the cloud data.
Summary We may imagine the digital cloud as placeless, mute, ethereal, and unmediated. Yet the reality of the cloud is embodied in thousands of massive data centers, any one of which can use as much electricity as a midsized town. Even all these data centers are only one small part of the cloud. Behind that cloud-shaped icon on our screens is a whole universe of technologies and cultural norms, all working to keep us from noticing their existence. In this book, Tung-Hui Hu examines the gap between the real and the virtual in our understanding of the cloud. Hu shows that the cloud grew out of such older networks as railroad tracks, sewer lines, and television circuits. He describes key moments in the prehistory of the cloud, from the game "Spacewar" as exemplar of time-sharing computers to Cold War bunkers that were later reused as data centers. Countering the popular perception of a new "cloudlike" political power that is dispersed and immaterial, Hu argues that the cloud grafts digital technologies onto older ways of exerting power over a population.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index.
Local Note eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America
Subject Computer networks -- History -- Popular works.
Computer networks.
History.
Internet -- Social aspects -- Popular works.
Internet -- Social aspects.
Genre/Form Popular works.
Electronic books.
History.
Other Form: Print version: Hu, Tung-Hui. Prehistory of the Cloud. Cambridge : MIT Press Ltd 2015 9780262029513 (OCoLC)917377231
ISBN 0262330091 (electronic book)
9780262330091 (electronic book)
9780262330107 (electronic book)
0262330105 (electronic book)
9780262029513
0262029510