In lively, mordantly witty prose, Negroponte decodes the mysteries--and debunks the hype--surrounding bandwidth, multimedia, virtual reality, and the Internet, and explains why such touted innovations as the fax and the CD-ROM are likely to go the way of the BetaMax. "Succinct and readable. . . . If you suffer from digital anxiety . . . here is a book that lays it all out for you."--Newsday.
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As the founder of MIT's Media Lab and a popular columnist for Wired, Nicholas Negroponte has amassed a following of dedicated readers. Negroponte's fans will want to get a copy of Being Digital, which is an edited version of the 18 articles he wrote for Wired about "being digital."
Negroponte's text is mostly a history of media technology rather than a set of predictions for future technologies. In the beginning, he describes the evolution of CD-ROMs, multimedia, hypermedia, HDTV (high-definition television), and more. The section on interfaces is informative, offering an up-to-date history on visual interfaces, graphics, virtual reality (VR), holograms, teleconferencing hardware, the mouse and touch-sensitive interfaces, and speech recognition.
In the last chapter and the epilogue, Negroponte offers visionary insight on what "being digital" means for our future. Negroponte praises computers for their educational value but recognizes certain dangers of technological advances, such as increased software and data piracy and huge shifts in our job market that will require workers to transfer their skills to the digital medium. Overall, Being Digital provides an informative history of the rise of technology and some interesting predictions for its future. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Being dyslexic, I don't like to read. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
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The author is a visionary engineer. He worked at MIT -despite of being dyslexic - and been involved with the real leaders of todays society of gifted engineers. For example, he worked on the 'Aspen project' [1978] to film all the possible streets in Aspen, Colorado and to transfer them to a multimedia medium that allowed one to traverse these routes when played back on a player. We take this for granted now but this was really creative use of a cutting edge science. He has helped on the transfer from analogue tv to digital broadcasting. He forecast the usage mapping software for automobiles, and worked on GUI (Graphical User Interfaces) for pc and how to make them better. He always has time to look how his concepts could be better for complete strangers to his domain. What holds this book back is a lack of narrative, he has done so much that its hard to see a common thread to hang it all together. Its a shame i waited so long to read it, most of it has yet to occour and some is happening already. I feel humble to think engineers like him have such calibre. Pure genius. I enjoyed this book very much, though it was hard to take in so much.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
A beautifully written book that carefully defines its own terms and introduces the reader to new way at looking at the implications of technology and mass media. Prof. Negroponte's converstaional approach to writing is a joy to read. It is highly informative and has altered the way that I think about new and emerging technology. Fantastic, I can't reccomend this book more highly.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Considering the book being written in 1995, the Prof. Nicholas Negroponte is a genius in pinpointing at that time the trends of the digital revolution. It is also easy to read, even if the reader doesn't have technical skills, being now almost a bible for the revolutionary digital world.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting vision of the what the web will be.
This is a book that can be read by the either a technical wizard or a techniphobe. It is a well written book describing how Nigroponte percieves the web and how it will be used. Read more
Published on 24 Jan 2001
5.0 out of 5 stars
Simply the best
Quite simply, this is one of the best books that gives an insight into what the digital world may have to offer. Read more
Published on 12 July 1999
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