Enchanted Objects

Design, Human Desire, and the Internet of Things

By: David Rose

Narrated by: Corey Brill

In the tradition of Who Owns the Future, an MIT Media Lab scientist imagines how everyday objects can intuit our needs, improve our lives, and form “an ethereal interconnection of gadgets and human desires that...will pervade our lives in the very near future” (The Wall Street Journal).

We are now standing at the precipice of the next transformative development, a world in which technology becomes more human. Soon, connected technology will be embedded in hundreds of everyday objects we already use: our cars, wallets, watches, umbrellas, even our trash cans. These objects will respond to our needs, come to know us, and even learn to think ahead on our behalf. David Rose calls these devices—which are just beginning to creep into the marketplace—Enchanted Objects.

In Rose’s vision of the future, technology atomizes, combining itself with the objects that make up the very fabric of daily living. Such innovations will be woven into the background of our environment, enhancing human relationships, channeling desires for omniscience, long life, and creative expression. The enchanted objects of fairy tales and science fiction will enter real life.

Groundbreaking, timely, and provocative, Enchanted Objects is a “delightful” (The New York Times) blueprint for a better future, where efficient solutions come hand in hand with technology that delights our senses. It is essential reading for designers, technologists, entrepreneurs, business leaders, and anyone who wishes to take a glimpse into the future.

Thought provoking

A great book for spurring ideas for new technologies and thinking about how the future may look.

Well done

In my opinion, this book should be absorbed in between The Design of Everyday Things and Reality is Broken.

A little dated but good concepts mostly

This ebook was an ok listen however I was expecting a little more technical substance. Author talks mostly about existing technologies with future flairs. The author does indeed have an imagination that will probably materialize into reality in the future. This is by no means a technical book.

a metaphor for connected objects

The field of connected objects, IOT and Ai/machine learning is advancing very fast but the book after 4 years still proves to be insightful because David Rose, regardless of current advancements, offers a way to look at the development of these objects through the lens of enchantment. His argument is to use metaphors of magic and fairy tales so that people will more intuitively understand connected objects. This, he also backs up with the dreams of people to have superpowers like teleportation, telepathy, immortality, and other things like that, which these objects increasingly start to give us. He argues against the reigning paradigm of the "black slab" that is limiting us in terms of affording more magical and desirable interactions. David is himself a professional in the industry and gives interesting examples throughout the book from his own practice. You can find a presentation from him on SlideShare that sums all this up. It's very nice to listen to this book to get inspiration. I've noted down several ideas listening to it. The speaker's voice could be better, though.

completely enchanted

we must keep this generation and future generations imagining. exciting, exciting stuff, to be so creative, yet delineated and structured in sharing all of this.