Electronic documents … will be interactive. Request a kind of information, and the document responds. Indicate that you’ve changed your mind, and the document responds again. Once you get used to this sort of system, you find that being able to look at information in different ways makes that information more valuable. The flexibility invites exploration, and the exploration is rewarded by discovery. You will be able to get your daily news in a similar way.
Predictor: Gates, Bill
Prediction, in context:In his 1995 book “The Road Ahead,” Microsoft CEO Bill Gates writes: ”Electronic documents … will be interactive. Request a kind of information, and the document responds. Indicate that you’ve changed your mind, and the document responds again. Once you get used to this sort of system, you find that being able to look at information in different ways makes that information more valuable. The flexibility invites exploration, and the exploration is rewarded by discovery. You will be able to get your daily news in a similar way. You’ll be able to specify how long you want your newscast to last. This will be possible because you’ll be able to have each of the news stories selected individually. The newscast assembled and delivered only to you might include world news from NBC, the BBC, CNN, or the Los Angeles Times, with a weather report from a favorite local TV meteorologist – or from any private meteorologist who wanted to offer his or her own service. You will be able to request longer stories on the subjects that particularly interest you and just highlights on others. If, while you are watching the newscast, you want more than has been put together, you will easily be able to request more background information or detail, either from another new broadcast or from file information.”
Biography:Bill Gates, the most influential technology entrepreneur of the late 20th century, was the primary author of the prediction-packed 1995 book “The Road Ahead” and is the founder and CEO of Microsoft Corporation. (Entrepreneur/Business Leader.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: The Road Ahead (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: Chapter 6: The Content Revolution
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 118
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne