Cyber Patrol

Cutting, Robert. Cyber Patrol. 2007. 48p. ISBN 978-1-4190-3223-3. Available at GFX CUT on the library shelves.

In the future, Cyber Patrol ensures that the Internet is safe for everyone and remains virus-free. When a new virus begins to infect the Internet, Cyber Patrol attempts to deal with it by sending its nanobots. Unfortunately, this virus, code-named Cyberdoom, is able to neutralize Cyber Patrol’s nanobots. As Cyberdoom spreads on the network, CARI, Cyberspace Android Robotic Intelligence, turns to the only person who can help defeat Cyberdoom.

Mark Lewis is 12, and he is an expert at playing games online. When a new game appears, Mark is more willing to try it, but the game turns out to be an invitation extended by CARI. CARI explains to Mark the challenges that Cyberdoom represents, and Mark agrees to help. Will his mad computing skills be enough to defeat the most advanced virus ever devised?

This graphic novel presents how online networks operate and how viruses can destroy vast sway of information. A timeline of various computing milestones is included. Readers seeking to understand the broad strokes of a computer virus will appreciate this entertaining story.

Eniac: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer

McCartney, Scott. Eniac: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer. 1999. 262p. ISBN 9780802713483. Available at 004.1 MCC on the library shelves.

The dawn of the Information Age can be rightly placed during the Second World War when two individuals, John Mauchly and Presper Eckert, one a physics professor, the other an electrical engineer, got together and proposed a novel way to perform high speed calculations by counting binary signals from electrically powered vacuum tubes. This general purpose computer was the first digital device and exponentially increased the number of calculations that could be processed in any given time frame.

Initially interested in the weather, Mauchly pursued a digital computing device to help him crunch reams of weather data. However, as there were no markets for such a machine, he and Eckert, whom he had met at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Engineering, approached the Army, which was always trying to calculate artillery firing and trajectories tables due to the high demands from the military conflict and offered their revolutionary design. Prior to ENIAC, no calculation were done purely electrically.

Over the course of three years, their small team of engineers developed rat-proofed wiring, soldered over 5 million links, used more than 18,000 vacuum tubes, and built a giant computer weighing over 30 tons. The first device capable of executing if / then calculations, ENIAC came too late for the Second World War, but heralded in the atomic age by providing the calculations for the hydrogen bomb.

The story of ENIAC’s development is well coupled with the personal tragedies of both Mauchly and Eckert, who became computer pioneers, but who ultimately failed to capitalize on their inventions, and who spent the better part of the following thirty years defending themselves against claims by others that they had merely stolen their designs.

McCartney’s book provides a fascinating look into the origins of computers and the cut-throat world of technological advances.

Unfriended

Vail, Rachel. Unfriended. 2014. 282p. ISBN 978-0-670-01307-4. Available at FIC VAI on the library shelves.

Truly and Natasha were best friends in elementary school, but in 7th grade they parted way after Natasha began hanging out with the popular kids. Truly befriended Hazel, and the two of them have been inseparable since. But when, in the middle of eighth grade, Natasha asks Truly to come sit with her and the other popular kids, Truly immediately accepts and walks away from Hazel without a word, leaving her at their lockers.

This betrayal leads Hazel to begin an online campaign to destroy Truly. Meanwhile, Natasha has ulterior motives for inviting Truly over to her table. She wants Truly to work with them on the History Day project, and she knows that Truly will end up doing all of the work. Then her friends will see that Natasha is really nice and takes pity on her old friend Truly.

When her plan backfires, however, Natasha finds herself on the outs with the popular kids, while Truly is fully accepted. Natasha starts her own efforts at destroying Truly. As posts and pictures proliferate and become nastier, the spiral of ill will increasingly descend towards nastiness and will not stop until someone gets hurt.

Told from the perspectives of Truly, Natasha, Brooke, the popular girl at school; Clay, Brooke’s best friend, and Jack, who is secretly enamored with Truly, this is a cautionary tale of what can go wrong when your friends turn on you, and how even innocent conversations become fodder for rumors and remarks.