Will TVs turn into PCs or vice versa? Vice versa, period … By the year 2005, he’s convinced, Americans will spend more hours on the Internet (or whatever it’s called) than watching network television. … he dreams of computers that are more like people, able to hear and see their personal users, recognize their smiles and frowns and foibles, have a sense of humor, too, and able to “converse” with all the other microchips in your house … It’s an infectiously optimistic, some would say visionary view of a world of wristwatch computers with more power than today’s desktop PCs, of personalized digital “newspapers” (the Daily Me), and fridges that don’t just notice that you’re out of milk, they remind your car to pick some up on the way home.
Predictor: Negroponte, Nicholas
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for The Irish Times, Stephanie McBride discusses the ideas of MIT’s Nicholas Negroponte. McBride writes: ”Negroponte has a no-nonsense, opinionated, in-your-face view about the forthcoming information revolution. Will TVs turn into PCs or vice versa? Vice versa, period. What’s more important in a VR helmet, the resolution of the images or the frame rate? Frame rate, definitely … By the year 2005, he’s convinced, Americans will spend more hours on the Internet (or whatever it’s called) than watching network television. Full stop. The computer interface? It’s messy, boring, less intelligent about what’s in front of you than your average, cheap auto-focus camera. So he dreams of computers that are more like people, able to hear and see their personal users, recognize their smiles and frowns and foibles, have a sense of humor, too, and able to ‘converse’ with all the other microchips in your house. ‘I think of myself as an extremist when it comes to predicting and initiating change,’ Negroponte says. In [his book] ‘Being Digital,’ he argues that atoms are the past, digital bits are the future, and the future is already upon us. It’s an infectiously optimistic, some would say visionary view of a world of wristwatch computers with more power than today’s desktop PCs, of personalized digital ‘newspapers’ (the Daily Me), and fridges that don’t just notice that you’re out of milk, they remind your car to pick some up on the way home.”
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: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: General, Overarching Remarks
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Irish Times
Title, headline, chapter name: Digital Dreamer
Quote Type: Paraphrase
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=7e2b99b34a9c83aec787af05a053ed1f&_docnum=1&wchp=dGLbVzb-lSlAl&_md5=c3eb7c95c10c6f2e6f14fb8123c164a7
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Pagano, Shawna