As bandwidth burgeons and computing muscle continues to grow, cyberspace places will present themselves in increasingly multisensory and engaging ways. They will look, sound, and feel more realistic, they will enable richer self-representations of their users, they will respond to user actions in real time and in complex ways, and they will be increasingly elaborate and artfully designed. We will not just look at them; we will feel present in them. We can expect them to evolve into the elements of cyberspace construction – constituents of a new architecture without tectonics and a new urbanism freed from the constraints of physical space.
Predictor: Mitchell, William J.
Prediction, in context:In his 1994 book “City of Bits,” MIT computer scientist William J. Mitchell writes:”As bandwidth burgeons and computing muscle continues to grow, cyberspace places will present themselves in increasingly multisensory and engaging ways. They will look, sound, and feel more realistic, they will enable richer self-representations of their users, they will respond to user actions in real time and in complex ways, and they will be increasingly elaborate and artfully designed. We will not just look at them; we will feel present in them. We can expect them to evolve into the elements of cyberspace construction – constituents of a new architecture without tectonics and a new urbanism freed from the constraints of physical space.”
Biography:William J. Mitchell was a professor and dean of architecture at MIT and the author of the predictive book “City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn” (1994). He also taught at Harvard, Yale, Carnegie-Mellon and Cambridge Universities. (Research Scientist/Illuminator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: City of Bits
Title, headline, chapter name: Chapter 5: Soft Cities
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-books/City_of_Bits/index.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney