The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at M.I.T.

Provides a look at the future as it is envisioned by the Media Lab at MIT, where scientists are retooling mass media to the desires and whims of the individual.

Brand, creator-editor of the Whole Earth Catalog, here offers serious-minded readers a close-up view of what research scientists at MIT's $45-million Media Lab are dreaming up for the coming century. The lab, under founder-director Nicholas Negroponte, has gathered together such scientific giants as Marvin Minsky, Seymour Papert and Jerome Wiesner among other lesser-known creative minds committed to working on the horizons of the computer world. This is visionary material, demanding reading even for those knowledgeable about the communications revolution. Brand focuses on Media Lab specificsresearch projects by teams developing concepts such as synthetic holograms, e-mail, personal newspapers and an astonishing Connection Machine using over 65,000 processors in parallel. The technologies described are stunning, but perhaps even more intriguing are Brand's discussions of newly emerging concepts, and his vision of "humanism through machines." Photos. 60,000 first printing; author tour.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Brand (the Whole Earth Catalog, the Whole Earth Software Catalog ) went to the MIT Media Lab for three months, seeking to gain a clear view of the future. Later, he studied the field of communications technologysifting the data he collected, reading the journals, and analyzing the Lab's activities. The resulting book examines the Lab's various programs and considers the direction and consequences of the communications revolution worldwide. The work being done at MIT is fascinating: multidisciplinary, multimedia communications research that "assumes that if it the Media Lab helps take care of the individual, computer-augmented individuals will take better care of the world." Brand's philosophical musings are fascinating, too, and thought-provoking. For general readers and specialists. Hilary D. Burton, Lawrence Livermore National Lab. , Livermore, Cal.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.