Being Digital

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Summary: The Future merging of telecom,computers, datacom and the TV
Review: This book shows the reader in a very readable non in-depth technical way, the way the future could look. A strong must for anyone interested in which direction the multimedia age may be taking.

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Summary: Amazing look at tomorrow and beyond
Review: I was fairly sure Negroponte was a genius before reading this book. Now, there can be no question about it. Negroponte leads the reader quickly through the early days of computing, stopping breifly at today, and then zips on to the future, which is what he wrote the book for in the first place. Good for people of all technical levels; it's not a terribly difficult read. However, it's truly interesting and will hold your attention with the greatest of ease. Oh, by the way--get the hardcover edition. It's well worth it.

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Summary: Excellent
Review: Very inciteful, obviously this author is ahead of his time, he is able to talk about a very complex subject and explain it in non-technical terms.

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Summary: Must be read
Review: Negroponte manages to present a clear view of the "Brave New World" that electronic communications will give us, without getting lost in the hardware and "lingo" so characteristic of those in the internet-computer world. His views of the future are well worth reading by all who have an interest in books, media, communications, etc. In summary, it is hard to imagine someone that would not be enriched by the reading of this book.

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Summary: Easily read, thought provoking book on Digital Age
Review: Book Report on Being Digital, by Nicholas NegroponteNicholas Negroponte is the kind of individual who runs around the world in perpetual Scan mode. He is constantly putting things together in unusual combinations, seeing things that others have not, and inserting ideas that cause one to think, 'Where did he come up with that stuff?' Negroponte is the Director of the Media Lab at MIT. This Lab was founded when I was an undergraduate there, and had the reputation of containing far-out, creative people thinking far-out creative thoughts about the way the world perceives things. Being Digital is a quick read. The ideas inside are explained clearly and succinctly, as if he is talking to an intelligent layperson. (My smart PC just suggested that layperson is spelled wrong and suggests lepers as a good substitute.) This is not dense Stuart Kauffman prose, but more the level of 'Discover' magazine. As such, it is completely accessible. You can read it on a plane and not miss anything, but that does not lessen the quality of his ideas. For example, in discussing how to pack a lot of information into a CD, he mentions that you 'can change the color of the laser from red to blue, thereby shortening the wavelength and increasing the density by a factor of four.' The central thesis of the book can be stated in four words: 'Move bits, not atoms.' Negroponte's considers that bits come in such a nice, portable form that moving them around is an effortless, borderless and unregulated matter. Atoms, on the other hand, require Fedex, trucks and boats, are subject to taxation at border crossings, and take up room in airliner overhead compartments. 'The information superhighway is about the global movement of weightless bits at the speed of light.' When I ran E&Y's campus recruiting program, I developed back trouble from hauling around 40+ pounds of resumes all the time. When colleges began sending resume books on disks, it was wonderful being liberated from what people used to call my hernia kit. About half the book is a summary of how the bit business came to be, and what state it is in today. The second half talks about where all this could be going. Negroponte discusses the 'five paths for information and entertainment to get into the home: satellite, terrestrial broadcast, cable, telephone and packaged media (all those atoms like cassettes, CD-ROM and print).' These face some unwieldy regulation that hampers their utility and physical limits, like bandwidth. Then there is the whole matter of interface design--how you interact with your technology? 'Not only do I not want all the features on my telephone; I don't want to dial the telephone at all. Why can't telephone designers understand that none of us want to dial telephones? We want to reach people on the telephone!' The problem is that human voices are remarkably difficult to interpret by a computer. And humans use so many different languages. Negroponte develops the subject of the 'interface agent', that will be a highly personalized personal computer. 'The best metaphor I can conceive of for a human-computer interface is that of a well-trained English butler. . . . Enough people believe that such interface agents are buildable.' From here, he is into a discussion of what will probably be coming along down the information highway that I found the most exciting part of the book. 'Imagine a computer display of news stories with a knob that, like a volume control, allows you to crank personalization up or down.' He concludes with a list of dangerous things that lie ahead, but ultimately concludes that the digital direction is a very positive one and that humans will be able to solve the social challenges that are involved in increasing digitalization. Negroponte is clearly an optimist, but seems to be a very reality-based one. Some of his ideas: * 'Copyright law is totally out of date. It is a Gutenberg artifact. Since it is a reactive process, it will probably have to break down completely before it is corrected.' * 'Being digital will change the nature of mass media from a process of pushing bits at people to one of allowing people (or their computers) to pull at them. This is a radical change, because our entire concept of media is one of successive layers of filtering, which reduce information and entertainment to a collection of 'top stories' or 'best-sellers' to be thrown at different 'audiences'. . . The information industry will become more of a boutique business . . . but only if the interface between people and their computers improves to the point where talking to your computer is as easy as talking to another human being.' * 'My argument, perhaps arrogant, is that if you have to test something carefully to see the difference it makes, then it is not making enough of a difference in the first place.' * 'The fact that TV Guide has been known to make bigger profits than all four networks combined suggests that the value of information about information can be of greater value than the information itself.' * 'I was in an audience of 1200 people who were asked to start clapping and try to clap in unison. . . within less than two seconds, the room was clapping with a single beat. Try it yourself; even with much smaller groups the result can be startling. The surprise shown by participants brings home how little we understand or even recognize the emergence of coherence from the activity of independent agents.' * 'On-demand information will dominate digital life. We will ask explicitly and implicitly for what we want, when we want it. This will require a radical rethinking of advertiser-supported programming.' * 'I think that videocassette-rental stores will go out of business in less than ten years.' * 'The fax machine is a serious blemish on the information landscape, a step backward, whose ramifications will be felt for a long time.' * The difference between a primitive and an uneducated person? 'Primitive people are not uneducated at all, they simply use different means to convey their knowledge from generation to generation, within a supportive and tightly knit social fabric. By contrast, an uneducated person is the product of a modern society whose fabric has unraveled and whose system is not supportive.' * Why can't UPC codes radiate data, too? *'Most examples of 'intelligent environments' I have seen are missing the ability to sense human presence. Future rooms will know if you . . . just took the dog for a walk. A phone would never ring. If you are not there, it won't ring because you are not there. . . A toaster should not be able to burn toast.' *'The only hazard (to the Web) is government in the form of politicians who want to control it. Usually under the banner of sanitizing the Net for children, people all over the world are trying to censor its contents. Worse, some countries, including the United States, want to make sure there is some means for them to listen into messages, like wiretapping. If that does not give you the willies, it should. Having less than the best security and privacy would be a grave error. Because of its digital nature, the digital world is potentially far more secure than the analog world. But we have to want it to be so. We have to knowingly create a safe digital environment.' Chip Saltsman ([e-mail])

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Summary: diary of an egomaniac
Review: Negroponte is the man who created Wired Magazine and then had them put his face on the cover and give him made-up awards. It is hard to point to any important discovery coming from him or the MIT Media Lab, except perhaps the invention of hype.

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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!