Books

Books : reviews

Edward Ashford Lee, Sanjit Arunkumar Seshia.
Introduction to Embedded Systems: a cyber-physical systems approach: 2nd edn.
MIT Press. 2017

The most visible use of computers and software is processing information for human consumption. The vast majority of computers in use, however, are much less visible. They run the engine, brakes, seatbelts, airbag, and audio system in your car. They digitally encode your voice and construct a radio signal to send it from your cell phone to a base station. They command robots on a factory floor, power generation in a power plant, processes in a chemical plant, and traffic lights in a city. These less visible computers are called embedded systems, and the software they run is called embedded software. The principal challenges in designing and analyzing embedded systems stem from their interaction with physical processes. This book takes a cyber-physical approach to embedded systems, introducing the engineering concepts underlying embedded systems as a technology and as a subject of study. The focus is on modeling, design, and analysis of cyber-physical systems, which integrate computation, networking, and physical processes.

The second edition offers two new chapters, several new exercises, and other improvements. The book can be used as a textbook at the advanced undergraduate or introductory graduate level and as a professional reference for practicing engineers and computer scientists. Readers should have some familiarity with machine structures, computer programming, basic discrete mathematics and algorithms, and signals and systems.

Edward Ashford Lee.
Plato and the Nerd: the creative partnership of humans and technology.
MIT Press. 2017

In this book, Edward Ashford Lee makes a bold claim: that the creators of digital technology have a boundless medium for creativity. Technology has advanced to the point where progress seems limited not by any physical constraints but only by our human imagination. Writing for both literate technologists and numerate humanists, Lee makes a case for engineering—creating technology—as both an intellectual and a deeply creative process. Explaining why digital technology has been so transformative and so liberating, Lee argues that the real power of technology stems from the way humans are able to partner with it.

Lee explores how engineers use models and abstraction to build inventive artificial worlds and to give us things that we never dreamed of—for example, the ability to carry in our pockets everything humans have ever published. He argues, however, that artificial intelligence’s goal of reproducing human cognitive functions in computers vastly underestimates the potential of these machines. In his view, technology is able to augment our cognitive and physical capabilities while we nurture, develop, and propagate the systems themselves. Complementarity is more likely than competition.