Tech Pioneers

Netscape Navigator may no longer be a household name, but its creator, Marc Andreessen, has been one of the most ahead of his time go-getters in technology. This illuminating biography introduces readers to a technological pioneer, whose ideas consistently and boldly wandered well outside the box, creating more and more innovative products. Readers will be inspired by Andreessen's forward-thinking creations, including cloud-based technology as far back as the 1990s, and marvel at his bold, outspoken attitude on such social media platforms as Twitter.

The lives and careers of the two founders of Apple, Inc., are explored in this entrepreneurial biographic account. From humble beginnings, their lives as individuals and as a team tie together the narrative of the maverick company that brought the public the Apple I and II computers in the 1970s and the Macintosh in the 1980s. The book details the later comeback of both Jobs and Apple itself, giving readers the historical context behind the iPod, iPhone, iTunes, the iPad, and Apple's many other innovative computer products and services that have forever impacted our society.

People use the World Wide Web for everything from paying bills and buying products and services to turning in work or school assignments and helping people stay in touch. This is the story of Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web, from his birth in London, England, to his physics studies at Queens College, Oxford, and his work as a software engineer at CERN in Geneva. He created the Web, specifications for URLs, HTTP, and HTML, and the first web browser. He also founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) at MIT in 1994 to develop international Web standards.

Not only was Turing one of the founders of computer science, he also helped the British military break Nazi codes, allowing them to decipher messages that helped the Allies win World War II. Turing was a pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence; he developed the Turing test, which determines whether a machine is capable of intelligence like that of a human being. Despite his impressive list of accomplishments, Turing was persecuted for his homosexuality. Sidebars offer extra information about topics such as Bletchley Park, ciphers, and the times Turing lived in, while a timeline serves as a quick reference for the chronology of key events in Turing's life.

Young readers today can hardly go a day without encountering a computerized device. At school, in stores, even in our own pockets-computers are everywhere! With this in-depth biography of female tech pioneer Grace Murray Hopper, a new generation can learn about this trailblazing computer scientist who contributed so much to computer technology. The span of Hopper's life is covered, including her upbringing and formal education. Her triumph of joining the U.S. Navy at a time when women weren't welcomed in the armed forces inspires, as do her continued advances in computer sciences after retirement from the navy.

Born during a short-lived marriage between the Romantic poet Lord Byron and an educated mathematician, Lovelace felt the pull of both the creative and scientific worlds. As a lonely and sickly young girl, Lovelace spent her hours building a flying machine and other inventions. While her mother pushed the study of mathematics on her, Lovelace often applied poetic and intuitive thinking to scientific concepts. It was during her work with mathematician Charles Babbage that she pushed the boundaries of technology. Lovelace's detailed notes on Babbage's Analytical Machine include a calculation method that has earned her recognition as the first computer programmer.