Being Digital (Hardcover)

~ Nicholas Negroponte (Author) "Being dyslexic, I don't like to read..." (more)
Key Phrases: United States, Media Lab, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

As the founder of MIT's Media Lab and a popular columnist for Wired, Nicholas Negroponte has amassed a following of dedicated readers. Negroponte's fans will want to get a copy of Being Digital, which is an edited version of the 18 articles he wrote for Wired about "being digital."

Negroponte's text is mostly a history of media technology rather than a set of predictions for future technologies. In the beginning, he describes the evolution of CD-ROMs, multimedia, hypermedia, HDTV (high-definition television), and more. The section on interfaces is informative, offering an up-to-date history on visual interfaces, graphics, virtual reality (VR), holograms, teleconferencing hardware, the mouse and touch-sensitive interfaces, and speech recognition.

In the last chapter and the epilogue, Negroponte offers visionary insight on what "being digital" means for our future. Negroponte praises computers for their educational value but recognizes certain dangers of technological advances, such as increased software and data piracy and huge shifts in our job market that will require workers to transfer their skills to the digital medium. Overall, Being Digital provides an informative history of the rise of technology and some interesting predictions for its future.

From Publishers Weekly

In an upbeat primer on the information revolution, Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab and a columnist for Wired, says we are making a transition to a "post-information age" where digitized transmissions will become extremely personalized. He predicts that interactive multimedia will become more booklike, for example, a TV or video program with which you can curl up and either have a conversation or be told a story. In his scenario, the personal computer-gateway to a multitude of information and entertainment services-will replace the TV set, and by 2005 Americans will spend more hours on the Internet than watching network TV. Negroponte also describes the Media Lab's teaching of learning-disabled children, critiques U.S. TV manufacturers' approach to high-definition television, touts the advantages of E-mail over the uneconomical fax machine ("a step backward") and ruminates on the emerging global digitized workplace. 100,000 first printing; BOMC selection; author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (January 31, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679439196
• ISBN-13: 978-0679439196
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (82 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #900,947 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bit Power, April 12, 2000

By	Chris Mackowski "CWMackowski" (Limestone, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Being Digital (Paperback)

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.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Negroponte is DA boss!, July 22, 2001

By	Manny Hernandez "Author of Ning For Dummies" (Bay Area, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Being Digital (Paperback)

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!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Being Digital in Digital Planet, September 24, 2005

By	Budi Putra (Jakarta, INDONESIA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Being Digital (Paperback)

IMAGINE that in a bright morning you read a digital newspaper which was specially "printed" for you. Supported by a telepresence tool, your digital form can be present at some places at the same time -- without getting effort at all from your house. Mostly of your job will take over by smart-digital-interface tools. You are living in digital life.

I read this book for the first time in 1996, when I was in Tokyo, Japan. Negroponte, to some extend, can be said as the Father of Digital Revolution. He reveals the mistery of multimedia, virtual reality, band-width and Internet.

Nearly 10 years later, now, I still enjoy to read this book. This is a fascinating book. Indeed, this is a must read book for those who want to know how digital tools can change our life in our new planet: digital planet.

Please find what method exactly offered by Negroponte to be "digital people"?