David Rose

Essential reading for designers, business leaders, technologists and entrepreneurs, an MIT Media Lab scientist and founder of Ambient Devices presents a blueprint for a better future where efficient solutions come hand in hand with technology that delights our senses.

Design, Human Desire, and the Internet of Things

Enchanted Objects

Bryan Alexander

Enchanted Objects has a fascinating idea and offers fun ways of thinking about technology. It's a useful book to help us think through the a-building Internet of Things.

That idea is that we can move away from our digital screens, and shift some attention productively to other digital devices("the smartphone... is a dead end as the human-computer interface" (7), also known as "The Terminal World"). David Rose fills his book with the titular objects, "modest, bespoke devices" (110) ones which communicate and otherwise interact via lights, sounds, vibrations, and shapes. There are wallets that change shape as the holder's balance grows or contracts (49). There's a medicine bottle's top which glows to suggest pills must be taken (127, 130). A simple sphere glows to indicate some change in information (77) and a doorbell emits different sounds depending on who presses it (91). A new bus sign displays approaching bus data in a clear, even "calming" way (174, 242). A cabinet contains a variety of live Skype channels, each locked to a specific person (183).

I enjoyed thinking through how such objects work, especially since Rose explains them very clearly. Enchanted Objects loves its charts and infographics. Part of the book breaks down how humans might appreciate objects being enchanted through different primal, even mythic desires they embody: omniscience, telepathy (including empathy), safekeeping, immortality, teleportation, and expression (61ff). Later Rose offers a nice table of signaling levels, from impacts that are preconscious (color, scent, temperature changes) to the apparent, then insistent (ringing, changes to motion) (128ff). He organizes final chapters by anatomizing an object by its loveability, usability, indestructability, glanceability, gestureability, and affordability (171ff). Looking towards the future, Rose thinks objects will be classified as calming, on-demand, casting digital shadows, learning, hackable, and subversive (249ff). Most appealing to me, one chapter describes rising human interest in an object along a sequence of connection, personalization, socialization, gamification, and ultimately story-ificiation (194). These are useful and accessible ways to approach a wide range of technologies.

Rose offers some intriguing observations which, although I disagreed with them, appreciated thinking through. For example, in a discussion of information and device overload, he mutters (or I imagine him muttering) "We don't want augmented reality, we want diminished reality."(25) Elsewhere we learn that "things will have the capability to cavort, coordinate, learn, and heal" (210); what a fascinating vision, so far largely inaccurate, but entertaining and inspiring. "We will have fewer devices with singular control, and more swarms of functionality": this depends on an awful lot of things happening, from production to infrastructure, which this design-focused book doesn't really address (266). "We want to have everything, yet own nothing" is also entertaining, but very silly in the face of things humans tend to *not* want to cease owning: cars, houses, special clothes, my books (252).

So why do I not joyously rate this book with five enchanted stars? Too many reasons.
First, the author makes a creator's classic mistake of assuming everyone else wants to create like they do. I think the evidence indicates that the majority of people will happily consume (or ignore) these objects, and not want to hack them (257). Indeed, having to hack them will irk.
Second, Rose begins by opening his vision across a wide range of human behavior, from empathy to storytelling to crime... but collapses nearly everything into shopping. By the book's end I felt I was being led to some posthuman Skymall, where each possible configuration of any object in the world led me to buying something. On reflection, I find no room in this book for the commons, and little interest in mere sharing.

Speaking of vending, the book is very concerned with Rose's projects. This isn't a bad thing in itself, but the sheer repetition of "I made this", "I made that", "my brilliant friend came up with another thing" palls over time. I did appreciate Rose's attention to his students' work. "I made this company", "I started another company" made me think I was reading a Fast Company profile.

Third, there's little sense that anyone else has thought about these things. Aside from a welcome evocation of Mark Weiser (51), Rose seems to be working in a scholarly void. 

Fourth, this book is a celebration of creativity, which is excellent. Yet it tends more towards cheerleading and less towards realism. Specifically, Enchanted Objects gives off a vibe of powerful objects for powerful people. There isn't much awareness of the non-wealthy public. It's very much MIT and Silicon Valley, and not enough of the 99%. If we fulfill Rose's charge and freight the world with enchanted objects, who gets to own them, and who's left out? This discussion fades before the glossy appeal to buy more stuff. Like many fantasy texts (and this one has frequent nods to magic, wizards, superpowers) it ultimately ends up on a conservative mission.

For some readers this political aspect won't be relevant. For them, and for everyone else who can focus, for the moment, on the book's vision and design brilliants, there is much to enjoy in Enchanted Objects.

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.

Enchanted Objects Design, Human Desire, and the Internet of Things

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