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| Negroponte is a columnist for Wired magazine
and a founder of MIT's Media Lab. In this book he lays
the philosophical groundwork for the "digital
revolution," decrying the distribution of
"atoms" (like his book) in favor of
"bits" (such as you're viewing now). He gives
clear explanations of the terminology of the digerati,
with startling statistics about what is possible using
even current technology. He points out, for example, that simple twisted pair (phone lines) could easily transmit an hour of television-quality, compressed video into your home in just a few minutes if we applied ourselves to improving existing technology instead of always looking to the future (vast fiber optic networks; satellites) to solve these simple problems. Other problems, such as video-on-demand, require a change in the thought process about delivery methods. Instead of a set-top box which allows you to select from a small number of pay-per-view movies according to a predetermined schedule, Negroponte proposes downloading compressed video to your home computer from a selection of thousands of titles. Take a few minutes to download an entire movie via a 500K bps cable modem, then watch it at your convenience (including the ability to pause for snacks). When the movie's over it is deleted from your computer - no need to make a trip to the rental store to return the "atoms." On the topic of HDTV, Negroponte proposes that arguing over the resolution is wasted time. Why not transmit signals at a very high resolution and let the TV decide how to view them? Letterbox format for people like me (and Woody Allen) who consider the reformatting of wide-screen movies to fit a wimpy TV screen a travesty, and pan-and-scan shrinking/editing techniques for people who think their screen space is wasted by the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. Overall, the book is an eye-opening look at the possibilities of the future. However, it suffers from a 60's flower-power utopian attitude that sacrifices reasonableness for idealism. Why not a world in which your computer realizes that your flight is going to be delayed an hour so it lets you sleep in an extra hour and tells your toaster and coffee pot not to start breakfast until later? Well, for one thing, who wants to pay for a toaster that assumes you always want toast for breakfast and has the communication technology to talk to the air traffic control system? (And stencils yesterday's closing price of your favorite stock onto your toast each day - one of Negroponte's lamer ideas.) Note: I've since seen some products that make the technology of the Internet Toaster seem useful. In particular, a gas pump that runs Windows CE and hosts its own web server. Customer uses his credit card at the pump, which the pump authorizes over the Internet. If the receipt printer runs out of paper or an important sensor begins to fail, the pump emails the service facility and the convenience store manager. Before the manager even has a chance to retrieve her mail, the service person has browsed to the pump's URL and checked a web-based status page displaying all the important data from the pump and has dispatched a repair person with appropriate parts. This kind of business-to-business use of smart appliances/equipment seems very useful. -- Craig 6/20/99 |
Being Digital