interviews Archives - Page 4 of 5

The Engadget Interview: Jack Valenti

This week we’re introducing a new regular feature: the Engadget Interview. Every week J.D. Lasica will speak with someone who is helping shape this crazy world of gadgets and technology that we’re all so obsessed with. We’re inaugurating it with Jack Valenti, outgoing president of the Motion Picture Association of America, who spoke to Lasica about movies, technology and whether the new breed of digital gizmos threatens Hollywood. His last day at the MPAA’s helm is Tuesday. Here are excerpts from that conversation. You have personally come to personify the MPAA— Well, I’ve been here 38 years, so if you last that long, you become an institution. Some people have portrayed you as anti-technology. Not guilty? Over time, I believe

Jaron Lanier discusses virtual reality & music

The man who coined the term ‘virtual reality’ discusses art, science and life in the post-Sept. 11 world Jaron Lanier — artist, scientist, visionary, and coiner of the term “virtual reality” — spoke by cell phone with J.D. Lasica from a café in Tribeca, New York, on Oct. 4, 2002, in advance of the PopTech conference in Camden, Maine. The PopTech program teases us with your presentation by saying only, A Musical Experience With Virtual Reality. What should we expect? Oh, my, that’s news to me. There is a thing I do sometimes which involves using some of the equipment from virtual reality research and stage performance, and I try to make virtual worlds that are themselves musical instruments in

Interview with Howard Rheingold

The Internet pioneer looks at the effect of disruptive technologies on society, culture and the entertainment industry Howard Rheingold — online pioneer, author of the best-sellers Virtual Reality and The Virtual Community — has a new book, Smart Mobs. He spoke with J.D. Lasica by phone on Sept. 12, 2002, in advance of the PopTech conference in Camden, Maine. You’ve called Smart Mobs your most important book. Why do you say so? For a couple of reasons. The proximate reason is that I’ve written this at a time when a lot of people have some experience and knowledge of what happened to them and their industry and to the world as a result of the PC and the Internet. Maybe,

Bruce Damer on building the Intercommons

The author of ‘Avatars’ talks about cyber cocktail parties and the concept of shared virtual worlds Bruce Damer, a pioneer in the field of virtual worlds and author of “Avatars,” spoke with me by phone in advance of the PopTech conference in Camden, Maine. Have you been to PopTech before? This will be our first trip. My life partner, Galen Brandt, will be coming, too. I’ve heard so much about it. What have they asked you to talk about? I was brought into PopTech by Ray Kurzwell as our organizations (the Contact Consortium and DigitalSpace) have been doing virtual worlds stuff for seven years now. I even wrote a book on the subject. I have to say I’m a little

Marvin Kalb on journalism in the Internet age

The former CBS and NBC News correspondent decries the news media’s feeding frenzy over Clinton-Lewinsky — and the effect that Matt Drudge has had on news coverage Marvin Kalb is director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He spoke by phone on Feb. 2, 1998, about 12 days after the White House sex scandal broke with a fury in the media. How do you see the impact of the Internet and all the new forms of media on coverage of the Clinton-Lewinsky story.

Ted Koppel: Will online news ‘bite us in the ass’?

The veteran ‘Nightline’ anchor has some words of warning for online reporters eager to reinvent the wheel of journalism Immediacy has never been a strong suit of Web news among the mainstream media. But in the coming months, dozens of content providers — from giants like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal to small-town weeklies and dailies — will team up with Netscape, Microsoft, PointCast and other push-news services to broadcast their own “channels” of breaking news right to a user’s desktop. That promises to fundamentally reshape the online news landscape. What risks do these traditional print organizations face in moving toward a broadcast model of Net news? I posed the question to Ted Koppel, whose 1996

John Perry Barlow: ‘People want to bypass the mass media’

The co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation calls the current wave of media realliances ‘the rearrangement of deck chairs on the Titanic’ John Perry Barlow is a retired cattle rancher, a lyricist for The Grateful Dead — and the theoretical architect for the cyberspace community. He spoke by phone on May 24, 1996, from a New York hotel room after a speaking tour of Dusseldorf and Paris. Do you think people are generally tired of the top-down model of journalism, where professional journalists decide what’s important for the public, where it’s all push and no pull? They’re absolutely sick of it. Most people have become profoundly skeptical of what they read through mass media. For all intents and purposes, the

James Fallows: The Net will transform — not displace — mainstream media

The noted media critic and former editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report discusses the future of online journalism Harvard-educated, a Rhodes Scholar, a former chief White House speech writer (for Jimmy Carter), former Washington editor of The Atlantic Monthly and former editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report, James Fallows is one of the nation’s foremost press critics, on the strength of his 1996 book, “Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy.” He responded to questions on the state of the online media in an e-mail interview on May 7, 1996. In an “On the Line” online interview earlier this year you said one advantage of the Internet is that it gives people “the ability to find

Nicholas Negroponte: The revolution will be digitized

In which the Guru of the Digital Generation discourses on McLuhan, electronic neighbors and square dancing Nicholas Negroponte, 51, founding director of the Media Lab at MIT and Wired magazine’s popular columnist from its inception, is one of the leading lights of the digital revolution. His 1995 book, “Being Digital,” looks at the implications of the new technologies for global communication, interpersonal relationships, censorship, and our very notions of reality. This transformative technology will fundamentally alter how we learn, how we work, how we entertain ourselves — essentially how we live. J.D. Lasica caught up with Negroponte via modem on March 21, 1995, during the author’s world book tour.