Being Digital

Rating:
Summary: Insightful... A good read for the digitally curious.
Review: Negroponte has a gift for understanding technolocial convergence and trends as well as an eloquent way of expressing his insights.

Rating:
Summary: Bits? Atoms?
Review: Negroponte writes an insightful book about his view on what's happening today and what will happen in the digital revolution. A definite "must read" for everyone who's "being digital" today.

Rating:
Summary: Negroponte's work is digital garbage
Review: Brian M. Wise 2/2/99 Book Review - Being Digital Nicholas Negroponte Amazon.com Review Rating: 1 star.

As head of MIT's premier technology pioneering studio, Negroponte has access to technology that possesses unknown applications. As such, his writings and his descriptions of the brave new world the global society is about to enter is not well-grounded in the realism of the human race. His job as columnist for Wired magazine, a notoriously technojunkie magazine dedicated to "bigger, better, faster" as a slogan does little to bolster his credibility as an individual dedicated to the betterment of the human race through technology. His work of thirty years with cutting edge technology has separated him from the real-world applications of the technology and forced him into a role of "visionary" where the dreams of the future make his rambling, inconsistent, ultimately sociologically useless book a waste of atoms OR bits. Negroponte believes that the Digital Revolution will create a space for humanity to expand technology to service its every need. In the future, according to Negroponte, we will be able to transmit vast quantities of information, pictures, voice and video, and "intelligent" computer programs to each and every wired-in household. For Negroponte, the highway is beckoning, and everything is ready for the individual to begin the communal journey to the Promised Land of Silicon Milk and Bit and Byte Honey. Negroponte does little to explain how this will benefit society as a whole or to discuss what effect this might have on the communication links between the global community. His entire work is preoccupied with the possibilities that 1995 technology could hold for the world and for the abilities of the 6 billion people that currently inhabit this earth. We should begin with several critiques of Negroponte's arguments for the digital revolution, beginning with a segment arguing against traditional print and broadcast media. Were Negroponte's assertion on page 13 "Digital books never go out of print. They are always there," sarcastic, it would be mildly amusing. While it may be an advantage to be able to print out an entire book off of your printer, there is still nothing like solid bindings of leather and paper that assure you the words contained within are worth something. Had I sent this paper as an email, I would have a digital copy of the book report. However, I would also be devaluing communication itself by demeaning the value of the book and the book which I choose to purchase in traditional bound form. One of the most interesting aspects of the book to me was Negroponte's assertion that copyright law is now out of date. It may be out of date, but Negroponte will never be able to prove his statement, nor will he be able to disprove it, and without being an expert in copyright law or the effects copyright law will have on web-published articles, movies, and postings, Negroponte is making a blanket statement he cannot back up with legal cases or findings. His own book is copyrighted, and prosecution will occur if I chose to reproduce his words, then produce it for my own profit - which also seems slightly odd if he is directly challenging the right of the copyright laws to exist! Even in a digital revolution, Negroponte's stance on copyright law and communication functions come more from his experience not as an actual practitioner of the communication industry, but rather as a man who sits in front of a computer and explores neat new toys everyday for his livelihood. His experience in the realm of computer information science is undisputed, but if he wishes to tell a journalism student that copyright law has no more application in the physical world, he should truly brush up on his communication law Regardless of how a piece of information is distributed, if I take Negroponte's book and digitize every word of it, then place it in online form and allow anyone to take it, the publisher and Negroponte will come down on me for doing so. Conversely, if Negroponte allows the book to go online in its entirety, he no longer has true hold on the book's popularity. Which is why I strongly believe Negroponte chose to publish this book in "traditional" media rather than try to stake a financial claim to an Internet web site. His own arguments against the impermamency of the physical world are counteracted by his decision to publish the book itself! This is only the beginning, however, of a long journey into doubletalk and technical jargon. An instance seen in class that was not pointed out due to the lack of time: Negroponte recently helped sponsor the Web connection of an orphanage in Cambodia. He helped place dozens of machines, plus help the orphanage pay for web access for an extended period of time. Perhaps Negroponte might find it necessary to buy Windows '98 for Cambodian orphans, but from a usability point of view the gesture is empty and meaningless. These children live in a region where the economy is so poor that nearby Thailand has made a major industry selling sex tours to wealthy Western men and women. And we are to believe that Negroponte has made a vast difference in the lifestyle of the children and the Cambodia public as a whole in their installation of this new lab for the orphanage? Negroponte is also convinced that the Internet will compete directly with television. In fact, recent studies by the New Media Center have shown that television actually detracts from the attention span of Internet viewers. Why? The television, comparatively speaking, is dynamic. The patterns are already laid out in our brains. In order to provide information, the television produces a barrage of images, voices and other information that allows us to engage in a passive entertainment without making much effort. Therefore, when someone is watching television and trying to compose a letter over email, they may wind up watching Seinfeld, then Mad About You and Frasier before even getting past the "Hello, how are you stage." This is why the majority of political advertising has not been switched to the Internet. (As a side note, many political candidates have been and do use flashy, well-designed web sites to illustrate issues and allow for full election updates.). Negroponte does not directly state this, but the current issue of "vote by email" has come up several times in recent months, especially at the University of Oregon, and it is a sure bet that Negroponte would wholeheartedly approve. Aside from the obvious problems of server overload, no web site is safe from hacks. In addition, anyone who is able to hack into a email voting system could easily "stuff the box" with virtual votes as long as that person had a list of social security numbers. I cannot stress how dangerous a system of voting by email is. In participation in politics, by shifting our attention away from the analog method of doing things, we prevent people who cannot afford such technology or are unable to use it (seniors and many other baby boomers) from being able to take full advantage of the information provided and the programs used. Negroponte conveniently forgets this small detail, as he forgets many of the other important sociological effects that communication systems have on society. Another point that Negroponte makes that rankles with communication theory and societal effects is his contention that newspapers, radio programs, and television programs will eventually be changed to provide the user with the exact kind of information they wish to receive. An example of this is his arguments for the development of personal digital assistants with Artificial Intelligence. In allowing your AI agent to choose and select your information, you are allowing someone else to make the decisions for what kind of information you will be receiving. Negroponte's "Personal Assistant" section describes a world where the personal life of the individual is controlled and pampered by a personal digital assistant. An artificial life form, if you will, where the individual's needs and wants are met by a smart, intelligent computer creation whose programming is only to ensure the comfort and safety, well-being of the individual. I should make an argument about self-censorship here, but suffice it to say that Thomas Jefferson (whom Negroponte has been compared to as the "Jefferson of the Digital Age") would spin in his grave if he heard that Americans were so foolish as to allow computers to possess control over their lives. not even human beings - to eliminate news and delete "uninteresting material or irrelevant information" from the information sources. Negroponte's reasonable counter to this would be that the AI assistants would be programmable to find the information that the individual needed. However, the question remains - would it not be simple for a corporation to allow only its information or information it considers valuable to the user to flow through its preprogrammed AI assistants? Negroponte does not cover this kind of information flow control or its effects if could potentially have on society. He instead gushes over what kind of splendid world it would be if everyone

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent book on the Future of things Digital
Review: Dr. Negroponte's insights into the future of things digital makes you really think about how companies like the phone company and the cable company are both delivering the same service. There just using a different medium. Makes you really think about things as just bits instead of voice, data, or video. Eventually there will be only one company who delivers bits to and from your house just like you get power. I was so enthralled with the book that I finished it the same day I bought it.

Rating:
Summary: Stop moving atoms and start moving bits!
Review: Fantastic and still up-to-date although it was published way back in 1995. Stop moving atoms and start moving bits! This book may make you change the way you look at commerce and the "information age". Much too optomistic at times...

Rating:
Summary: Entertainment that let you start thinking
Review: I finished the book in July 1998 and it's still up to date. It's easy to read and understand. This book is extremly motivating. Each time you turn the page and finish a chapter you'll see that the next one is also just two pages. OK, go for it and suddenly you finished the book! Nicholas let you take part in the history, make you smile and let you think bigger (don't waste your time on little things and problems, solve the big one which aren't you able to see anymore)

Rating:
Summary: If You Know What a Network is, Don't Expect Much
Review: I had a hard time assigning a "rating" this book. On one hand it does raise some interesting issues, but on the other, most of the issues are somewhat obvious IF you have an understanding of networks. If you have a technical background and know what a bit is, don't bother with this book.

The author is really hung up on the word "bit" to the point that I found myself shouting "ok, shut up, I understand" as I read the book.

I have difficulty recommending this book to the technically challenged as well. It won't explain how a network works. It will not explain the Internet. In fact it doesn't explain much of anything, except.... it DOES do a good job explaining the various modes of tranmitting bits and the limitations. It was because of this I gave it 2 stars.

The book does seem dated. Many of the technologies he talks about are already in the PointCast software.

Rating:
Summary: I BEG TO DIFFER
Review: Nick N. couldn't be smarter and couldn't be more wrong most of the time. He's right when he says the human-computer interface is still terrible. He's wrong about most everything else. Negroponte is a classic example of an expert in one area stumbling badly when he gets our of his area of expertise. Being Digital, like Wired, is a triumph of marketing over everything. Let's just look on the surface. The world is quickly becoming Wireless - are they going to change the name of the magazine? "Digital" is just the current form of computing that makes economic sense. So why does "being digital" mean anything? It doesn't. It's just a good name for a book. The point? Negroponte is the ultimate temporal provincialist who mistakes the short-term manifestations of change for the underlying change itself. This guy is a pied piper who will lead you and your money right into the drink. He is a high priest of the orthodoxies that so many people believe. Instead of reading Being Digital, read anything by Paul Saffo or Jammin' the Media by Branwyn. These guys understand what is happening. Being Digital just has a better title than anything they wrote.

Rating:
Summary: The Mind Machine Matrix
Review: You're approaching the new millennium, what people are calling the digital age. You are terribly anxious, utterly ignorant. But, somewhere in the air full of technobabble, you also catch the unmistakable whiff of excitement. The excitement of a new state of being.

Nicholas Negroponte's book, Being Digital, fuels that excitement, dispels your ignorance and stills your nervousness, as it unravels, explains and rationalises the digital dimension to modern life. An essential item in the baggage of anyone about to travel the information super-highway, Being Digital is not intimidating, as the future it talks about may seem to some, but exciting, like that very future will be for all.

Beginning with the difference between an atom and a bit, and going on to the far reaches of futuristic multimedia, Negroponte takes you by the hand and makes you understand, appreciate and want to be a part of the inevitable era of the digital. He talks of the change from atoms to bits as being "irrevocable", and "unstoppable", and of a time when information will be "universally accessible." He gushes about your right and left cufflinks or earrings communicating with each other by "low orbiting satellites..." He sees schools changing to "become more like museums and playgrounds for children to assemble ideas and socialize..."

And yet, he stops to introspect on the irony of his book itself being rendered in atoms, and not bits. "So why an old-fashioned book, Negroponte...?" Revealing the basic asceticism that lies at the core of every techno-savant like himself, Negroponte confesses, "Interactive multi-media leaves very little to the imagination...When you read a novel, much of the colour, sound and motion come from you."

In another discussion about fiber versus copper and the future of bandwidth, a concern we all share about being digital, Negroponte asks, "Do we really want or need all those bits?" "New information and entertainment ser! vices are not waiting on fiber to the home; they are waiting on imagination." A welcome assurance that the digital age will still be driven by the power of the human being, that the application will drive the technology, that "being digital" won't mean "not being human".

Negroponte's depth of perception and easy-going style make Being Digital an immensely readable book, a book you are expected to "read yourself into". Prophetic enunciations mingle with child-like flights of fancy (are the two that much different anyway?), difficult theory is made light of with daily ditties, and techno-jargon is the brunt of some intelligent humour ("If prizes were awarded for the best oxymorons, virtual reality would certainly be a winner.").

Among the many predictions that punctuate the book (" I think of myself as an extremist when it comes to predicting and initiating change") Negroponte's statement "In a digital age, the medium is no longer the message" could well be considered the next milestone comment after McLuhan's. "He calls it commingling of bits, where you can experience your newspaper as sound, text and picture too, depending on the way you want it. And what's more, you could even choose your stories, because control will be transferred from the provider to the receiver. "Being digital will change the nature of mass media from a process of pushing bits at people to one of allowing people...to pull at them.)" Though it is devoid of illustrations throughout its 255 pages, Being Digital paints a picture. An indelible, and prophetic picture.

Negroponte has interesting names for his chapters, which nudge you to read on, assured that you will not be bored with technology, but entertained by a scientist who is at once submerged by his subject and detached from it. In one such chapter, called " Place without space", he foresees the post -information age as an age when you could look out of the window in Boston and "! ;see the Alps, hear the cowbells and smell the digital manure...". You could also go to work without going to work, and remote controlled surgeries could be a reality (read virtual reality). While Being Digital definitely forebodes the fantastic, it retains a sense of realism, constantly distinguishing between the near term and the longer term. "In the nearer term, however, the brain surgeon will need to be in the same operating theater as the brain..."

It is also aware of the pitfalls of the age it celebrates. In the chapter "Being digital is not enough", Negroponte says, "In the next millennium...we will all be using e-mail, provided we learn some digital decorum" - a stinging summation of the as yet uncivilised online community? Negroponte also likens the Internet to an Austrian ballroom where almost every one of the 400 guests has just learned how to dance!

Being Digital is all about accepting the inevitable. Being optimistic about parts of it, and bemoaning others -"The next decade will see cases of intellectual property abuse and invasion of privacy. We will experience digital vandalism,...data thievery." Negroponte's view is that the inevitable is not imminent. It is now. "My optimism is not fueled by an anticipated invention...".

For him a state of being digital is almost genetic, and like all things genetic will proliferate, from generation to generation.

This is an important book. Cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary, and humanistic in its appeal, it will be found, if it's not already, on the bookshelves of the digerati (definitely), people in the media, businesses, arts, academia, government and also, strangely, among the rumpled bedclothes of the incurable joystick junkie. Such is the power of prophecy, and simplicity.

Rating:
Summary: Extremely thought-provoking
Review: Negroponte offers his reader some very thought-provoking things to consider. In addition, the work is very "reader-friendly"--well-written, and filled with examples and explanations. I was particularly interested in the distinction he makes between "bits" and "atoms". "Being Digital" is a work that can be read and re-read numerous times, each time stimulating further thought and consideration