If I really could look out the electronic window of my living room in Boston and see the Alps, hear the cowbells, and smell the (digital) manure in summer, in a way I am very much in Switzerland. If instead of going to work by driving my atoms into town, I log into my office and do my work electronically, exactly where is my workplace? In the future we will have telecommunications and virtual-reality technologies for a doctor in Houston to perform a delicate operation on a patient in Alaska … In the post-information age, since you may live and work at one or many locations, the concept of an “address” now takes on a new meaning.
Predictor: Negroponte, Nicholas
Prediction, in context:In his 1995 book “Being Digital,” Nicholas Negroponte writes: ”If I really could look out the electronic window of my living room in Boston and see the Alps, hear the cowbells, and smell the (digital) manure in summer, in a way I am very much in Switzerland. If instead of going to work by driving my atoms into town, I log into my office and do my work electronically, exactly where is my workplace? In the future we will have telecommunications and virtual-reality technologies for a doctor in Houston to perform a delicate operation on a patient in Alaska. In the nearer term, however, a brain surgeon will need to be in the same operating theater as the same time as the brain; many activities, like those of so-called knowledge workers, are not as dependent on time and place and will be decoupled from geography much sooner … In the post-information age, since you may live and work at one or many locations, the concept of an ‘address’ now takes on a new meaning.”
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: Economic structures
Subtopic: Telecommuting
Name of publication: Being Digital (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: Chapter 13: The Post-Information Age
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Pages 165, 166
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne