Enchanted Objects: Innovation, Design, and the Future of Technology

This book helps me look at human interface design in a different sense. Decades of experience designing software and control systems have taught me a lot, but David Rose has made some things clear which escaped me. And it's a very readable, enjoyable book! I love it.

I read David Rose's Enchanted Objects with great interest. I am a confessed gadget fiend and love trying out all the new devices that people are always making. David Rose provides a good perspective on how to think of gadgets and objects. He starts out by sketching a dystopian world where people are always looking at flat glass slabs, a world he calls terminal world. This is, of course, the world we currently live in. He then provides a more expansive view where one can imagine interacting with objects, not just in the sense of literal computers but more in the sense of things that traditionally are held and touched. He goes through a plethora of interesting objects such as a balance table for promoting conversation, the Lockitron lock and, of course, his Ambient Orb and GlowCaps. (These latter two things he particularly spearheaded.) He talks about a lot of key concepts in thinking about objects such as multimodality (dealing with different senses at the same time), having a shadow digital presence for physical objects in the real world and modularity between components to deal with obsolescence. He also talks a lot about the subtle problems we have in dealing with objects such as the "filter bubble" (where we are essentially just dealing with a virtual world and not the real world) or the uncanny valley (when objects get too lifelike and this seems a bit spooky and it is almost better for them to be stranger).He deals a bit with the issue with privacy and surveillance talking about the cameras in the Innovation Center where he worked. But I could imagine going into a lot more detail on the future world of information storage in the cloud and its privacy implications.In any case, it was a overall a good read and really gave me a lot of valuable thoughts on the physical world of the objects that I love to play with.

What a delight to read what's technologically available, on the drawing boards, and in the heads of those on the forefront. Rose puts it out there in a fun and enlightening way that's encouraging and very intriguing.

Enchanted Objects uses the Internet of Things as a present day context for facilitating the design of what the author calls Enchanted Objects. Enchanted Objects are things that feed us useful information or simply perform some useful function while being largely blended into our environment (as opposed to being front-and-center like our iPhones). And while the idea of the "Internet of Things" (or certainly the phrase, anyway) is relatively new, the author has been a designer of enchanted objects for a very long time. I'm a product designer myself and quite technologically savvy as well. Still, Enchanted Objects gave me an opportunity to step back and think about the work that I've been doing (and the work I will do in the near future) in a refreshing new context. The book is an easy read, filled with stylized diagrams that I really enjoyed. The Author draws on his own personal experience as a product designer, entrepreneur and professor but also on a large body of knowledge in this field.

I enjoyed this book and have also passed it along to others who had similar sentiments. It's not super deep, but it inspires the reader to open their mind to the possibilities in this domain.

Interesting portrait of the future. Several examples of possible and available enchanted objects, but could have done with more.

Interesting read for the creative and imaginative person. Some neat product mentioned/created is not marketed but tha's OK.

Good Condition. One of the good books to read about technology.

A marvelous book - David Rose captures a snapshot of the not-too-distant future and encourages you to imagine and play. Brilliant examples are taken from modern literature and popular culture as well as the technology industry. A must read for anyone interested in making the future a better place.

Brilliant book. Easy read, full of insights and great ideas

Interesting to dip in and out of...Writing does not flow so much.. but ideas good.

Great Read

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