The entire conception and construction of the newspaper is digital, from beginning to end, until the very last step, when ink is squeezed onto dead trees. This is the step when bits becomes atoms. Now imagine that the last step does not happen in a printing plant, but that the bits are delivered to you as bits. You may elect to print them … or you may prefer to download them into your laptop, palmtop, or someday into your perfectly flexible, one-hundredth-of-an-inch-think, full-color, massively high-resolution, large-format, waterproof display (which happens to look exactly like a sheet of paper and small like one, too, if that’s what turns you on). While there are many ways to get you the bits, one is surely broadcast. The television broadcaster can send you newspaper bits.
Predictor: Negroponte, Nicholas
Prediction, in context:In his 1995 book “Being Digital,” Nicholas Negroponte writes:”The entire conception and construction of the newspaper is digital, from beginning to end, until the very last step, when ink is squeezed onto dead trees. This is the step when bits becomes atoms. Now imagine that the last step does not happen in a printing plant, but that the bits are delivered to you as bits. You may elect to print them at home for all the conveniences of hard copy (for which reusable paper is recommended, so we all don’t need a large pile of blank newsprint). Or you may prefer to download them into your laptop, palmtop, or someday into your perfectly flexible, one-hundredth-of-an-inch-think, full-color, massively high-resolution, large-format, waterproof display (which happens to look exactly like a sheet of paper and small like one, too, if that’s what turns you on). While there are many ways to get you the bits, one is surely broadcast. The television broadcaster can send you newspaper bits.”
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: February 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: Newspapers
Name of publication: Being Digital (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: Chapter 4: The Bit Police
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 56
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne