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Summary: insight behind the transparent dust cover
Review: this book may be a few years old now...but...it still holds value for the time and bucks required to ingest this digest. negroponte is a personal hero...a person with a clue of what is coming...the nature of technology...and the mind of a culturally creative. i read this book when it came out...and just revisited it. it is a good read to give someone that might be a technophobe or in denial...it is accessible to the digitally challenged and provides a good carrot to dangle before their nose to encourage them to get engaged.in a digitized world you need to get onto the streaming media...those 0's and 1's that are shaping everything around us. if you are interested in negroponte's playground...you might add stewart brands book on The Media Lab as a trailer to this one...then you will want to go to MIT and play with the future for yourself
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Summary: Great all-around presentation of revolutionary thinking
Review: This is one of those rare books that combines easy, enjoable reading with thought-provoking authorship. Even though this book is over 6 years old, the author's theories and predictions still hold true and give you new persective on the digital world and the future of information. A true classic!
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Summary: Negroponte is DA boss!
Review: Or should I say "Negroponte rules!" For those who don't know who he is, we're talking about the man who has spearheaded the efforts to make out of MIT's Media Lab one of the state-of-the-art technology workshops of the world. What those guys are working there is what you and I might own or work with (as a gadget, for instance) in a few years, depending on your wlak of life. These guys are light-years ahead of us. And Negroponte is even ahead of them! If you were a follower of Negroponte's last-page articles in Wired magazine for several years, you might not find the book all that new, but even then, you will have to acknowledge that he has a unique and very intuitive way to explain digital technology to people who are not tech savvy. He reminds me at times of Nobel-prize winner Richard Feynman in that sense. Anyway... Think of this book, whether you are a techie or not, as a statement written five years ago about what's to come. Some of the things he refers to in the book have already occurred, which makes it even more exciting: it means that he's right, and those things that have yet to come will definitely be part of our lives sooner that we can maybe imagine. Buy it and you will devour it in a day, I predict!
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Summary: Bits vs. Atoms
Review: I'm fairly certain that the changes Negroponte envisioned haven't happened as quickly as he imagined that they would. The ability to view video-on-demand got bogged down in a nightmare of copyright issues and bandwidth problems and atoms are still unfortunately controlling the way that we are able to experience bits. Despite the fact that much of it is dated, this book is still useful on two levels. It's a good book to make clients (particularly media clients) understand the impact of the difference between the analogue and the digital world. It's also a good book for people who are interested in the history of the Internet. Given how seminal it was, _Being Digital_ will never go completely out of date.
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Summary: Well Written Guide to "Being Digital"
Review: Negroponte's work is an engaging, well written book that truly is the "manifesto" of the Post-Information Age. Much of what Negroponte has written still relevant today even in light of all of the advances since the book was originally published in 1995. For those new to the Technology field, this is a terrific book that is hopeful but realistic. Books that discuss technology are sometimes not "accessible" to the general public but this book addresses complex technical issues in a "down-to-earth" manner that ALL readers can enjoy and understand. Negroponte breaks digital techology down to its component level- the bit and enlightens us all on the way. He outlines/documents the "digital" lifestyle that so many of us have embraced with open arms. In the course of the book, the author discusses future of televion and networked home appliances. Most people can relate to these concepts, despite the fact that many of the concepts that Negroponte presents are not yet reality. Overall this is a readible book that is highly recommended by this reader.
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Summary: Being Digital: Your Choice?
Review: By reading the customer reviews, and the books Being Digital, Data Smog, and Weaving the Web, one can get a better understanding of the overall picture. I celebrate Tim Berners-Lee's idea: The cornerstone is the mutual respect for free individual participation. If you like it, if you find a value in it, you can go for it. The web is just an empowering tools for mankind, that the individuals can be brought together to form an immense collective power, analogous to water droplets forming an entire ocean. Yet the tool in itself is neither good nor bad, just like electricity or solar energy. The danger is, its power is so great, and everything can happen and end in just a fraction of a second, so that if mankind is not well prepared to handle this, then the human race will be drowned to death by this overwhelming ocean of water. The information age will be meaningless if we fail to notice the depriving effect on those unable to catch up the technology. It will become another scarce resource to facilitate inequity, another equipment for the rich to control the poor. Finally, most people will be unable to cope up with the information growth. New classes will emerge, the information-producer and the information-consumer. This is far from Tim's original idea that people can freely share their thoughts, everyone can both publish and browse. There is still a chance of salvation: We can slow down IF WE AGREE TO DO SO. That's what happened with the US versus Soviet military competition. Again individual effort is not enough, only collective power can make a difference. So what is the best choice to gather collective power? The web, of course! The marvelous thing about the Web and Democracy is that it can tolerate the spreading and growth of opposing idea. You have the right to criticize the Web within a Web page. You can publicly mock at democracy if your place is democratic enough. If we find that already we are polluting our information space, the best thing to do is to shout out for help in the information street corner. We need to clean up the space, not to destroy the space. The most valuable thing is that we can have freedom, and do good things by our own free choice. It would be naïve to ignore the danger ahead, and the right thing to do is to proceed carefully, but not to retreat.
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Summary: A classic about the changes we're seeing in the world
Review: Not everyone likes this book but I found it really made me think about where technology is going and how it is going to change business. Every time I drive by Blockbuster video I think about Negroponte's prediction that soon any company in business to transport bits via atoms is going to be out of business. When ever I go inside and wait in line to rent a video, I'm certain this type of business is doomed.
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Summary: BIT FUTURE
Review: If I read this book before three or four years ago, for sure I will write something different than what I write at this time. Besides, if we become as the way the writer thinks, everything is going to be computerized. All machines in our houses can "talk" together and make some decisions for us, we will certainly live like machines. The author talks about other few things like bit protection and copyright, also the effect of multimedia in our life and pay - per - view concept. Most of the author's main points are true and already we get some of them in our life. The author's language is clear and easy to understand. In addition, he uses a lot of evidences and examples from real life and I think all of us recently are aware of these examples. Very Good book to read, I encourage every body need to now about Bit future to read it.
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Summary: Bit Power
Review: Being Digital introduces the reader to a world that may not be too familiar. The Information Superhighway is a vast array of collections of data and could easily trip up a first time user. Nicholas Negroponte begins by giving the reader some background information starting with the development of CD ROM drives. Negroponte enhances the read by making the language easy to understand and clear. What I gained from reading this book is a perspective once thought to be held only by the "Tech Freeks." Negrooponte points out the pluses as well as some minuses when dealing with this new technology. Bandwidth, HDTV, and the Internet in general are more clearly understood after reading Being Digital. Published in 1995, Being Digital was released at the emergence of an e-society so much of the information is old and known by now, but Negroponte is someone to listen to; co-founder of the MIT Media Lab. Being Digital allows the reader to truly understand the power of a bit in today's world.
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Summary: Being Digital
Review: Nicholas Negroponte's book Being Digital, is definitely a text for the nineties. The author gives us a realistic and candid observation on where we have come, where we are at, and some thoughts of the future of the information highway bit by bit. He gives his reader an informative history on many new technologies, especially multimedia. New technologies and how we communicate have and will continue to change our lives forever. He discusses the positives of the continuing evolution of information and those who benefit from new technologies. The benefits have touched education at all levels, helped the disabled, allowing them a connection to society they may have never been a reality without new computer technology. This electronic age is making our lives, in general, easier especially in our jobs. Job skills will have to evolve to accommodate this digital era. He gives an overview of the down side of the virtual community we now exist in, such as criminal mischief and the antiquated laws and regulations that plague the computer industry. All in all he gives us an optimistic view of information technology.
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