Being Digital
| Being Digital | |
|---|---|
 Being Digital's front cover |
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| Author(s) | Nicholas Negroponte |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. |
| Publication date | 1995 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 243 |
| ISBN | 0679439196 |
Being Digital is a non-fiction book about digital technologies and their possible future by technology author Nicholas Negroponte. It was originally published in January 1995 by Alfred A. Knopf.
Being Digital provides a general history of several digital media technologies, many that Negroponte himself was directly involved in developing. Negroponte analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of the technologies (such as his belief that High-definition television wastes broadcasting power), and tries to predict how the technologies will evolve. Negroponte presents a strong belief that humanity is inevitably headed towards a future where everything that can will be digitalized (be it newspapers, entertainment, or sex). This leads Negroponte to a quote repeated often in promoting and explaining the book's material, that the book is made of "unwieldy atoms" that will probably be replaced by a digital copy by the time anyone reads the book. Several e-books exist of Being Digital, making the quote rather prophetic.
Being Digital also introduced the "Daily Me" concept of a virtual daily newspaper customized for an individual's tastes. This prediction has also come to pass with the advent of web feeds and personal web portals.
Contents |
[edit] Bits and Atoms
Negroponte writes a lot about the idea of bits and atoms. He notes that bits are the smallest form of information on a computer and that many bits when combined make up all information on a computer. Digital music, ebooks, emails and many other types of information on the computer are made of bits. He also writes about atoms which make up physical, tangible objects such as CDs, books and letters. He believes that in the future all forms of information that are now made of atoms (books, CDs, etc.) will eventually be turned into bits.
[edit] Negroponte Switch
It is his idea that digital information that is going through the ground (wires, cables) will eventually be through the air. Also, the digital information that is going through the air (ethere) will later be going through the ground. Negroponte called this "trading places," but it gained the name the "Negroponte Switch".
[edit] Technological Interface
Negroponte believes in different forms of interface than we currently have. He believes that the mouse was a mediocre interface for point and click, and horrible for drawing. The interfaces were touch-screen technology and voice recognition software. The iPhone and other touch-screen software proved him correct that touch-screen technology would be a future form of interface.
[edit] References
- Being Digital, 1995. ISBN 0-679-43919-6
- Being Digital e-book by Cyberdock, 2005.
[edit] External links
- Review and overview of Being Digital, by Elizabeth Murphy, 1996.
- A few quotes from Being Digital
