Nicholas Negroponte

(1996)

I recall buying this as soon as it came out in paperback, loving it at the time, and starting to call myself a “cybrarian” (what can I say: I was at Library School at the time). This book was written just as the digital revolution was starting off. As a point of comparison, at this stage I had my own email account, had text-only internet access at University, and was a member of a few listservs. Negroponte was at the MIT Media Lab, working on cutting edge technology. In this book, show more he set out his stall as to the uses of the digital features that were just then being developed, and predicted the near and far future. This book had a big effect on me, helping me embrace “digital” more in a world where library studies were being pulled in two directions.

I guessed it would be a very different reading experience now, and so it was. But fascinating!

So, what didn’t happen? Negroponte’s computers-in-a-watch … well, that is not ubiquitous, but the computers in our mobile phones are analogous, I think. And we still don’t have nine-inch hologram personal assistants running around on our actual desktops (what a shame – although mine would trip over the piles of paper and books on my desk!). And I think CD-Roms probably disappeared a bit more quickly than he thought.

He predicted ebooks, but thought they would be on actual paper, and predicted newspapers in that format, too (also, oddly, I recall distinctly reading about e-ink that switched round to present new words on flexible pages when a chip was inserted into an ebook spine. Couldn’t find that in the book this time, even after going through the index. I wonder if I read that in an article he wrote). And the iPad – “multimedia will become more book-like, something with which you can curl up in bed”. He accurately predicted in-car GPS systems, although doubted that they would have voice commands, owing to the fear of litigation (they do have voice commands in the US, right?). And the most important one, to my mind, was his prediction of borderless, 24-hour working. That’s certainly come true for me!

What’s changed? Remember dial-up? It was amazing in 1996 to have a list of numbers allowing you to connect to the Net from any country in the world. Yes, a list of phone numbers, and 90 different phone jacks with which to connect your computer in different countries. Hotel guides were starting to publish information on which chains didn’t allow you to unplug their phones and plug in your modems! That feels like another world, doesn’t it!

And what hasn’t changed. Amusingly, he talks about people claiming they are not “computer literate” after the “debilitating” battle to print a document off. Well, has that really changed … ?!

It was truly fascinating to read this from the other side of the digital revolution, and I am so glad I did so. show less

An enthusiastic but naive forecast that misses the social, political and economic choices in technological development; this is a forgettable book very much limited by its time and place of origin.

admittedly, being a product of the 90s on such a fast moving target as human - computer interactions, much of this must be dated and indeed we hear of VCRs, CD-ROMs, etc. However, the author of this book delightfully and ably narrated by Penn Jillette, is looking forward more so than around. As such, this recalls to me Dertouzos' What Will Be. Negroponte's crystal ball was tuned in when he foresaw wearables, the ubiquity of VOD, turn by turn navigation and more.

What I like most here from show more this probably justifiably abridged edition is the idea to consider bits versus atoms solutions to current and future problems. show less

Worth reading now in the same way that most old futurism is worth reading, as a lesson in humility. Still, even back then, the wild-eyed, heedless promises of digitization being able to slice bread, wash your underwear, perform rhinoplasty and usher in a boundless era of unending world peace ought to have occasioned a few more doubts than they evidently did.