Det digitale liv (1995)

I was a volunteer for OLPC (one of his projects that came out of the MIT Media lab in 2007) and saw some of vision in that project and people like Walter Bender (who is mentioned in the book). He is a visionary person for things he worked on and saw. The book is from the 90s, when the internet was just starting to be popular. It shows vision in so many areas and is plain spoken as to make it accessible to average people. Even now you can see things he imagined unfolding like the Amazon Alexa, which enables people to 'do something' rather than work on a computer, keyboard and mouse, by using a hands-free technological agents. ( )

Would have been a good read 10 years ago. The author got some things right, but a lot of the predictions -- or at least a lot of the focus -- is wrong. This was written at the dawn of the Internet. CD-ROM's were still a big thing, and dvd's hadn't appeared yet.

As a study into what we thought the future would hold, it was interesting. But I kept wanting to tell the author to shut up about things like digital, connected toasters. It was a dumb idea, and no one ever wanted such a thing anyway. ( )

Back in 1995 this book opened a lot of eyes has to what to digital revolution could for and to society. ( )

LOS BITS -EL ADN DE LA INFORMACIÓN- ES ESTÁN TRANSFORMADO EN EL ELEMENTO BÁSICO DE LA INTERACCIÓN HUMANA. NICOLÁS NEGROPONTE CONSIDERA QUE UNA QUINTA PARTE DE LA POBLACIÓN MUNDIAL -MÁS DE MIL MILLONES DE PERSONAS- ESTARÁ CONECTADA A INTERNET EN EL AÑO 2000. "SER DIGITAL" SIGNIFICARÁ, SOBRE TODO, UNA VIDA EN EL ESPACIO CIBERNÉTICO Y UN CÓDIGO MÚLTIPLE PARA COMUNICARSE CON LAS MÁQUINAS; PIENSE CON CUÁNTAS "TRATA" DURANTE EL DÍA, TODOS LOS DÍAS: TELEVISORES, VIDEOCASETERAS, COMPUTADORAS, TELÉFONOS, FAXES, COCHES, TOSTADORAS, METRO...LA REVOLUCIÓN DIGITAL CONVERTIRÁ A LAS MÁQUINAS EN OBJETOS CON LOS QUE HABLAREMOS E INTERACTUAREMOS; SE ALTERARÁ NUESTRA FORMA DE APRENDER, DE TRABAJAR, DE DIVERTIRNOS...EN FIN, TODA NUESTRA FORMA DE VIDA.
DESDE MARSHALL MCLUHAN, NINGÚN AUTOR HABÍA MODIFICADO TAN SUSTANTIVAMENTE NUESTRA COMPRENSIÓN DEL MUNDO ACTUAL Y DE SI EXTRAORDINARIO FUTURO.

This guy absolutely nails it. Written in 1995, and absolutely as relevant today as it was then. Everything he talks about has come to fruition. It's worth reading again every 5-10 years. ( )