The power of the word is extraordinary, and if the word is embodied as text, that, too, is powerful, regardless of whether the text lives as ink on pulp or signal on fiat-panel display. Words aren’t going away, and I think the book/no-book argument is dumb once you realize that all we’re talking about are variations in display technology. I’m not anti-book or anti-print; it’s just that soon we’re going to be doing our “printing” in a different medium.
Predictor: Negroponte, Nicholas
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, Thomas A. Bass interviews MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte on the 10th anniversary of the Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he heads up an effort that spends $25 million a year “engineering the merger of newspapers, television, learning and computers.” Bass quotes Negroponte commenting:”The thing that’s been around for thousands of years and is so powerful is the word. The power of the word is extraordinary, and if the word is embodied as text, that, too, is powerful, regardless of whether the text lives as ink on pulp or signal on fiat-panel display. Words aren’t going away, and I think the book/no-book argument is dumb once you realize that all we’re talking about are variations in display technology. I’m not anti-book or anti-print; it’s just that soon we’re going to be doing our ‘printing’ in a different medium.”
Biography:Nicholas Negroponte, a co-founder of MIT’s Media Lab and a popular speaker and writer about technologies of the future, wrote one of the 1990s’ best-selling books about the new future of communications, “Being Digital.” (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: Publishing
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: Being Nicholas: Nicholas Negroponte is the Most Wired Man We Know (and That’s Saying Something)
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.11/nicholas_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney