Rupert Goodwins' Diary

Wednesday 31/10/2001

I don't know quite what it is about Professor Nicholas Negroponte that reliably winds me up. But he does, from the very first time I read his stuff in Wired magazine to the interview he gave to BBC Online earlier this week. So, I wrote about it in a disparaging way, and in a similar spirit The Register wrote about it, and by one of those strange coincidences we published within a short time of each other. And then, as if by magic, the BBC pulled the interview from its site. So you can't read it any more -- but take our word for it, it had many gems embedded therein.

You can, however, look back at earlier interviews with the prolific Prof, in which he predicted a billion people online by the end of the year 2000, a world where there are more Barbie dolls online than people (presumably two billion or so), the $1 PC and other delights. Far be it from me, who in the past has said confidently that we'd have countrywide affordable broadband by 2000, to poke too much fun, and the guy has also said things that are cogent, accurate and thought-provoking.

So why does he get on my wick quite so much?