Editing Nicholas Negroponte (section)

===''Wired''===
In 1992, Negroponte was the first investor in ''[[Wired Magazine]]''. From 1993 to 1998, he contributed a monthly column to the magazine in which he reiterated a basic theme: "Move bits, not atoms."

Negroponte expanded many of the ideas from his ''Wired'' columns into a bestselling book ''[[Being Digital]]'' (1995),<ref>{{Cite book
| publisher = Knopf| isbn = 0-679-76290-6| last = Negroponte| first = Nicholas| title = Being Digital| location = New York| year = 1999}}</ref> which made famous his forecasts on how the interactive world, the entertainment world and the information world would eventually merge. ''Being Digital'' was a bestseller and was translated into some forty languages. Negroponte is a digital optimist who believed that computers would make life better for everyone.<ref>Hirst, Martin and Harrison, John (2007) Communication and New Media, Oxford University Press, p. 20</ref> However, critics such as [[Cass Sunstein]]<ref>Sunstein, C.R. (2001) Republic.com Princeton University Press</ref> have criticised his [[techno-utopianism|techno-utopian]] ideas for failing to consider the historical, political and cultural realities with which new technologies should be viewed.

In the 1980s, Negroponte predicted that wired technologies such as telephones would become unwired by using airwaves instead of wires or fiber optics, and that unwired technologies such as televisions would become wired—a prediction commonly referred to as the [[Negroponte switch]].<ref>Speaking at a Northern Telecom meeting in the mid-80s with [[George Gilder]]. Negroponte called it "trading places" Gilder called it "The Negroponte Switch". From ''Being Digital'', 1995, Negroponte, N. {{ISBN|0-340-64930-5}} p 24.</ref>