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Customer Review :
Being Digital in Digital Planet
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"?
Rating : 
Good bread, but nothing in between
I read this book, partly based on the implied challenge of one of my professors. After finishing it, I can only say I'm glad I didn't pay full price for it.
For starters, you can't blame Negroponte for the dated material in the book. After all, it was published in 1995. One of the things I really enjoyed about this book was reading some of the predictions made by Negroponte back then, and how they turned out. The "atoms vs. bits" argument was arguably revolutionary at the time and I think it is a relevant method of discussing the digital revolution with students who were born either during or shortly before the book being published. Dinosaurs such as I can remember the days before the internet and when we had to use typewriters to work on papers. I remember how completely freaked out I was the first time I heard my computer "speak" in 1994, after installing a sound card and CD ROM drive - so the concept of interactive computing and hence moving bits vs. moving atoms is a bit of an eye-opener to an old timer. To those who come of age post-Internet, its a good way of grounding you in the history and function of digital life. The best arguments in the book show up in the introduction and in the conclusion - I think that's where Negroponte is at his best. He pontificates (as well as predicts!) very well in these sections - much better than in the rest of the book.
Between the intro and conclusion... well... there seems to be a lot of rambling. Kind of reminds me of a guy at work who won't stop talking once he starts. And then its scattershot from one topic to another, blah de blah de blah, with no real substance. The best part between the opening and closing is when Negroponte goes off about the stupidity of fax technology. Quite frankly I agree - why type something on a computer, print it out, put it in another machine, send it electronically to wherever, so that someone at the other end can print out another copy? Complete waste of paper, to say the least. Makes me wonder if the lumber/timber industry isn't involved somehow... but other than that, there just isn't much there.
That said, this isn't really a bad book. At times I found myself nodding in agreement, other times nodding off to sleep, and other times laughing out loud either at the foolishness of some predictions or the uncanny accuracy of others. Overall however, I wasn't too terribly impressed.
Rating :
Negroponte agrees...
"And so? I know: Extrapolating bandwidth, processor speed, network dimensions, or the shrinking size of electromechanical devices has become truly tiresome. Moore's Law, first expounded by Gordon Moore in 1965, is indeed a stroke of brilliance, but one more mention of it should make you puke. Terabit access, petahertz processors, planetary networks, and disk drives on the heads of pins will be ... they'll just be. Face it - the Digital Revolution is over." -- Nicholas Negroponte, 12/98
Maybe this will silence some of the recent critics who've been tearing into this book. Yes, this stuff was actually INTERESTING at one point, but we've heard too much about it at this point. I own the book, and enjoy re-reading it occasionally (*very* occasionally) when I have nothing better to do, just to get some perspective on how things looked in 1995. Seems like a century ago, does it not? Things change so fast in the digital age that books like this are doomed to obscurity 6 months after they're published. But in my opinion perspective on the past can be priceless, because knowing where we've been helps us figure out where to go next.
Rating :
Being Byte-able
I read this book in 1996 because I saw it on my manager's desk - we both have EE/MBAs and decades of computing experience - and we discussed some of the issues raised.
This all happened in 1996, of course.
I found it a very good book. I'm sure that it made forecasting errors, but also certain that compared to many of the other books which delved into similar terrtory, it was superior (as a book for the general reader.)
I also must point out that for software developers with decades of experience in 1996 - this includes Bill Gates - the web took most of us by surprise. However, once nrought to my attention by a younger CSer, I could easily realize the power of it.
About a year ago I began reading books on computing and other subjects from an earlier era - the 70s to mid 90s - like "The Soul of a New Machine" and "Future Shock" and "Hackers" among many others. Many of these were excellent books, partly because they got the technology and because they also got the sense of what it was like to be on the cutting edge of technology, however, most are now historical artifacts.
Negroponte got the sense of what was happening in certain subsets of digital technology and essentially sounded the warning to those unaware.
As always, context is critical.
Rating :
outdated but still relevant
I decided to read this book after hearing about Negroponte's initiative for the $100 laptop, and wanted to see where he was coming from. Perhaps the most interesting point that is still relevant is the distinction between bits and atoms, and when bits make more sense. Eleven years after this was published, we still crave the tangible qualities of paper. Screen resolution still can't compete, and even the Sony reader is limited to text, which excludes things like comics without extreme editing. Using digital media makes sense for film and television, and Netflix has proved to be much better than Blockbuster could ever be, in terms of convenience and browsability. What Negroponte didn't predict is Jarvis' "exploding TV", where the content, typically delivered by Hollywood, is now in the hands of users who can all have their 15 or more MB of fame, via YouTube or other video sharing sites.
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