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| A summary of Negroponte's 'Being Digital' | |||||||
| |Intro-Chap.4| | |Chap.5-Chap.9| | |Chap.10-Chap.14| | |Chap.15-Epilogue| | ||||
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CHAPTER 10: LOOKING AND FEELING
In the future, the computer will be developed in a way that it will be able to see and recognize the user and what one is doing. This development will make better computers. Our fingers will also replace the mouse, which presents difficulty when it comes to graphics. Negroponte however presented three reasons as to why the fingers are not used as a mouse: covers what one points at, low resolution and dirties the screen. However, he disagrees with these reasonings and believes that the reason why we cannot use our fingers is because we have yet to discover a good form of technology to sense the finger. | |||||||
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CHAPTER 11: CAN WE TALK ABOUT THIS?
Speaking is a better medium than typing. It is conversational and interactive. Speech along with gestures and eye contact are the essence of human communication. Computers are capable of producing speech in two ways: voice recording and synthesizing sounds. However, some of the words might not be found in the computer's vocabulary or may not be understood. The addition of voice in computers will enable the users to understand the sender of information better. | |||||||
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CHAPTER 12: LESS IS MORE
In this chapter, Negroponte writes mostly about interface agents. Interface agents will be like personal butlers and secretaries who will be trained about what you like, knows your callers, and when to disturb you about a call. Interface agents would make computers better and more intelligent. But to make them really intelligent, it would need common sense, without which, it is of no use. These agents would be personalized. One interface would be different from another. |
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CHAPTER 13: THE POST-INFORMATION AGE
In the post-information age, we will no longer be dependent on time or space. Everything would be personalized. Machines would understand us like any normal human being would or even beyond that. Television need not be viewed at real-time. The post information age means that we have more choices. We have control over what and when we want things. | |||||||
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CHAPTER 14: PRIMETIME IS MY TIME
The internet serves an an agent of change. It has developed and changed without a boss or a leader. No one can say how many people use the internet everyday. Most of these people, use the internet for email. But the internet is used for a lot of other things. Before, the internet was merely used for information. But now it serves as a means of building communities. Ten years from now, video rental stores will go out of business because of an internet application called Video-on-demand or VOD. VOD saves the viewers the hassle of making a deposit and returning videos. Also, video-on-demand will provide unlimited selections and unlimited copies of the videos. Currently, there are four electronic paths into one's home: television, cable, satellite and terrestrial broadcast. Each of these paths is suited to delivering a certain type of bit. But each of these channels or paths, tries to increase its payload by delivering bits even if is not suited for that channel. In time though, these bits will end up in the right channels. | |||||||
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