Being Digital
Being DigitalBEING DIGITAL is a book written by Nicholas Negroponte, a Professor or media
technology at MIT.'Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division
of Random House, Inc; New York and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of
Canada Ltd; Toronto.
Originally published in hardcover in slightly different form by Alfred a.
Knopf,inc;New York in 1995.
Being Digital is about what life will be like in the not too distant future,
life in a world in which the bit has replaced the atom as the primary commodity
in all our human interactions: in how we entertain ourselves, educate our
children, conduct our bu
sinesses, and express ourselves.
Wide ranging and anecdotal, the book is a compilation of ideas that Negroponte
originally explored in his monthly column for Wired magazaine. But the book is
not a mere anthology. Fortunately for us, when compiling these columns,
Negroponte deemed it impo
rtant to re-examine and -as he says-'repurpose' many of his original ideas in
light of what has changed in the short time since he originally wrote many of
the Wired pieces. The result is a read that is often insightful, often
madenning, and always provoc
ative. In the first part he talks about the communication medium, and how
information content is so much more important than bandwidth.
If we would only transmit better-labelled bits, we could do so much more with
the bandwidth we have today. More elaborately, on 'Bits...
To view the complete essay, you be registered.