Rating: 
Summary: How's 'Bout My Opinion?
Review: Being Digital details a timeline of major computer events in terms of technology, media inventions and cultural impact. The book begins by defining the smallest parts of simple digitalization, bits. The author, Nicholas Negroponte, moves from the smallest principle, progressing into computer systems, and finally digital information-its layout, delivery and expected user perceptions. It illustrates how the Internet will become a PC, digital television (HDTV), cable, telephone and satellite all in one. Negroponte explains that computer and Internet "innovation [is] paced by new applications like mobile computing, global networks and multimedia" (76) instead of simply technological advances. He claims that personal computers are now moving away from scientific purposes and forms to follow the artists strokes on a societal level; in essence, the Internet is becoming a creative forum for social and cultural interaction. The thesis of Negroponte's book could be said to be embodied by his statement in the first ten pages: "Computing is not about computers anymore. It is about living" (6). He discusses how he believes that at some point in the near future, everything will be digitized-old technology (like the telephone and television), the output of the mass media, all forms of schooling and even communities. Negroponte admits that it sounds as if the world will be as ordered and unemotional as a computer, but because the Internet and the World Wide Web have opened themselves up to so much information, creativity is a must to survive online. Otherwise, nothing will attract the users attention; people are still visually oriented. And that's why so much effort and idea is going into the concept of interfacing and computer vision. Negroponte devotes the entire last third of his book to this topic. Computer vision, he states, in simple terms, means devising computer programs and software that allow the computer to interact and converse with a person just as another person would. This is the focus of the post-information age that we are moving into. Negroponte believes that the programming and software will succeed and alter communities, business, trade, government and generations ahead. Even though digitization leads to digital vandalism, software piracy, data thievery, job loss and personal instability, the fact that it promises decentralization, globalization, harmonization and empowerment far outweighs the aforementioned disadvantages. As the reader, I understood the ideas and concepts that Negroponte discusses because in necessary instances, he used personal examples and colloquial explanations to clarify. And he covered every possible aspect of the subject in under 250 pages. However, his tone was very direct and seemingly correct, leaving me with little energy or time to put forth my argument. I got the impression that any comments to the contrary of what the author was discussing would be immediately dismissed because they wouldn't stand up to what had been stated in all those 250 pages in terms of theory and evaluation. Based on that, not the content, I wouldn't recommend this book to any reader who would have any inkling to dispute the written word.
Rating:
Summary: Being Reasonable
Review: I did not read Being Digital by choice: it was a summer reading assignment. Moreover, had a grade not depended on my knowledge of the novel I would have abandoned it relatively early. Negroponte's writings are the manifestation of the idea that computers will lead to the sort of halcyon utopia marketed by telecommunication companies. If anything, computers have led to a antithesis of such prophecies. The once promised twenty hour work week, which was supposed to be shortened by the assumption of menial tasks by electronic devices, has balloned in response to increased time learning, using, and maintaining computers requires. Certainly, as a person writing an online review, it would be hypocritical to ignore the virtues of silicon; however, are these changes truly beneficial and necessary? Sure, email is a convenince as is online shopping, but are their novelty values superseding their true resourcefulness? Whose lives are genuinally improved by digital television or newspapers which supposedly cater to my tastes? Personally, by reading an online newspaper which has decided to only print that which I, it decides, would enjoy, might overlook an article on the unusual exhibition of the Northern Lights or something, God forbid, that I might actually read for my own enlightenment. However, categorizing my preferences by number may lead to such an omission. I am a person, not a number. I don't want to be digital.
Rating: 
Summary: Get Digital!
Review: What is Digital? Is it merely as simple as the "information superhighway?" Or, is it a complex web of intermingled electronics destined to replace everything home, hearth and workplace? In this, the Technology Age, one is lead to believe it's either get on the bandwidth-to modify the phrase--or die a slow, excruciating information death, like a victim of Civil War Gangrene. Negroponte takes all us pseudo-techies, the ones who are too ashamed to admit they just don't quite get 'it', and guides us down the path of digital history. As a founder of MIT's Media Lab, a place where technology is studied for fun and academics, Negroponte is certainly qualified to discuss such things. He does so comfortably and simply, explaining digital technology in a concise and entertaining manner. The format is precise, the prose is easy-to-read. This is a man one could truly envision enjoying a cup of microwaved coffee with. Negroponte explains technological history and its implications on society in basic terms that any literate luddite could process. The premise is based in a clever analogy: Atoms (the real, tangible items we see, touch, use each day) vs. Bits (it's the packets of information stupid!). Atoms are the tangible stuff that comprise everything physical; bottled water, books, computers. Bits are the invisibly-invisible minute pieces of information upon which much of modern society relies; credit as we swipe our bankcard at the grocery; on-demand instant information via the web; e-mail rather than antiquated parchment air-mail letters. Understanding the digital phenomenon is easy with Negroponte. The chapters are almost flashcard/sound bite like. A brief introduction is followed by sub-sections that explain the technical stuff and offer familiar real-life comparisons. The chapter on bandwidth (that same bandwidth everyone seems to be bent on increasing these days) gives an account of what bandwidth means; its potential (more TV channels fer g'dsake!), and its complications (if government rations out bandwidth to a few big-media conglomerates, public access will be restricted and we'll have to pay more for those channels). Negroponte also discusses some failures in the digital age, HDTV for one. His thesis? HDTV? Been there, seen it, done it, forget it! Give me Digital-it's clearer, faster, and it's interactive. The book is filled with visceral descriptions that relate technology to real life. Examples such as driving 160 KMP per hour are compared to faxing at 1.2 mbps (millions of bits per second). This is how fast we can and should want to be transferring those bits back and forth to each other. Negroponte foresees potential benefits for citizens of a digital society. In the on-demand digitized marketplace, customers are still real people but their merchants become the computer. Thus, each of us has the potential to request what we want, (a TV program or an airline ticket) when we want it, where we want it, and at the price we want to pay. Think pay-per-view and priceline.com. We will also have the capability of becoming more intelligent and time proficient thanks to pc browsers capable of knowing what we want on screen-even before we demand it. One need only look at the recent ads for etour.com, "surf without searching." (You register, get profiled, and are instantly delivered websites matching your interests). However, some criticized Negroponte as being too optimistic. Technology that can recognize our eyeprint? Who cares? And then there's the popular fear of Internet addiction and the thought that all this info-on-demand will create generations of solitary, mouse-clicking, chip-crunching moles. Negroponte believes rather than become isolated, technology and computers connect us to cultures, people and ideas previously inaccessible to the average person--even if we have been sitting alone at the computer screen for three days running. Some of Negroponte's scenarios may have seemed fantastical in 1995, but we truly have come to see many of his visions as day-to-day reality-cars with satellite navigation systems, recordable CDs, 'intelligent interfacers' (our personalized browsers). Rather than go west young man, we should be cheering Be Digital! Thanks to Negroponte, we know why.
Rating: 
Summary: Detoothing the digital tiger
Review: I find myself to be a bit of a history person. Not for a major, but for fun. Although I was quit familiar with HDTV and its development in Japan and within the United States, I found many interesting facts that guided my understand of the history of the technologies of the internet and now included a better understanding of how they worked. Negroponte, has undoubtedly given a hard technical language easy to understand terms. With easy to understand illustrations, in comparing data backup to digital gridlock on a highway, and down to earth comments that one can easily grasp no matter the computer skills involved. He has done the amazing task of detothing the digital tiger. His book sends us through history, to the beginning of communication and guides us on a journey through the digital world. From black-and-white television to HDTV, from CD-ROM to the use of bandwidth, and how even that word can change its meaning. Negroponte takes the fear of using the Internet away and makes its' use like charting a calm lake. The book has obvious signs of its age, but where it would supposedly drop off, for the time in which it was written, Negroponte takes giant steps forward in telling and accurately predicting the directions in which the Internet would go. His insights on e-commerce, encryption codes and daily uses and services that a connected world can offer were amazingly insightful. From a world were driving directions are but a click away, where your refrigerator calls for service before it brakes and operating systems that cater to your every need. Being Digital was an easy to read book that allowed me to grasp the basics, and harder parts of the Internet that in a lot of ways, previously confused me. I feel that I have gained a more technical background, and won't have that confused look on my face the next time on Jeopardy when a question related to the Internet is asked.
Rating:
Summary: Easy Reading
Review: I would have to say that the most confusing thing about this book would have been right in the beginning when talking about all of the atoms and bits per second. Other than that, I would have to say that this has been one of the easiest and most informative books that I have read. Being Digital was really easy to follow even for someone who is not all that computer literate. I thought Negroponte was ahead of his time when writing this book. When I read it, I saw what he was saying and many of the things he had said had already happened. I guess as the founder of MIT's media lab, he knew what was going on and could somewhat predict the future as far as technology is concerned. I would totally agree with Newsday when they stated that this book was "succinct and readable...If you suffer from digital anxiety," because I do suffer from this, yet I could follow along quite easily. I understood everything he was saying about the Internet, virtual reality, and multimedia. I also understood the innovations he discussed that have come about, such as the fax machine and CD-ROM, and how they have affected us in a positive manner. What he described in this book was the realism that we have faced and that we will face for the rest of our lives. I thought that this book made you think and it also explains what we will have to look forward to in our future. We need to realize how we are in an "information age" and how our world is changing faster than we can imagine.
Rating:
Summary: CONFIRMATION
Review: HALLO Sorry I cannot review. Actually I need some information to buy this book but I have no email address. Please confirm so that I will able to contact the relevant address. Thanks Rizwan
Rating:
Summary: Still digital after all these years
Review: As old as this book is (35, in internet years), it is still visionary. Lucid, interesting, lively reading. Conversational. I'm not in an e-commerce company but I want to understand something of the changes ahead as we move to an information-based economy. If that's you, too, read this book, along with Berners-Lee's Weaving the Web; then read Evans and Wurster's Blown to Bits and (maybe) Kelly's New Rules for the New Economy, and you will have a bunch of new ideas, I promise. I wish I'd read this book when it first came out.
Rating:
Summary: Reviewing it years after reading it
Review: I read this book several years ago, and some of Negroponte's observations about the Digital Society we are transforming into are still with me today. And excellent examination on the nature and social impact of digital information. A great read, even years after it was written.
Rating:
Summary: Setting a New Table
Review: This is a probing examination of the "information highway" as a means by which to transmit, globally, "weightless bits at the speed of light." Because bits are "the DNA of information", Negroponte's brilliant analysis of their nature and impact helps us to benefit from as well as understand a "revolution" which has only begun. In my opinion, he has helped to set a new "table" at which the rest of us can examine a variety of menus as well as the materials required to feast on the opportunities of the Digital Age. This is a major contribution to our understanding of how that age is evolved to date, and, in which directions it will proceed...with or without us.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: This is an excellent book that outlines the interdisciplinary research in the MIT Media Lab.
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