SuperSight: What Augmented Reality Means for Our Lives, Our Work, and the Way We Imagine the Future

NATIONAL INDIE EXCELLENCE AWARDS WINNER — NONFICTION

2022 IPPY AWARDS BRONZE MEDALIST — SCIENCE

For thousands of years, human vision has been largely unchanged by evolution. We’re about to get a software update.

Today, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Snap, Samsung, and a host of startups are racing to radically change the way we see. The building blocks are already falling into place: cloud computing and 5G networks, AI computer vision algorithms, smart glasses and VR headsets, and mixed reality games like Pokémon GO. But what’s coming next is a fundamental shift in how we experience the world and interact with each other.

Over the next decade, what we see and how we see it will no longer be bound by biology. Instead, our everyday vision will be augmented with digital information to give us what spatial computing pioneer David Rose calls “SuperSight.” And as our view of the world becomes blended layers of information delivered via glasses, contact lenses, or projected light, it will fundamentally change learning, shopping, work, play, and much, much more.

David provides an insider’s guide to the way our lives are about to change, while also unpacking the downsides of this coming world—what he calls the hazards of SuperSight, from equity and access issues to bubble filter problems—and proposing rational, actionable ways around them.

From AI mirrors that advise us on our outfits, to museums that let us talk with deceased explorers and artists, to the ways we envision sustainable cities, the scope of augmented vision is boundless. SuperSight offers a rich speculative preview of the future and its implications, both shocking and thrilling.

David Rose, MIT lecturer, author, and serial entrepreneur offers a unique perspective on the next platform of spatial computing, what he calls SuperSight. His last book, Enchanted Objects is one of the definite texts on designing the Internet of Things. David wrote the seminal patent on photo-sharing, founded an AI company focused on computer vision, and was VP of Vision Technology at Warby Parker. David is known for translating complex technologies into delightfully intuitive new products and consulting to businesses on how to thrive in digital disruption.

David’s work has been featured at the MoMA, covered in The New York Times, WIRED, The Economist, and parodied on The Colbert Report. David's apartment was featured in a New York Times video called “The Internet of Things,” where he shared some examples of how to incorporate magic into mundane objects: a Google Earth coffee table that responds to gesture, Skype cabinetry in the living room, and a doorbell reminiscent of Mrs. Weasley's click which rings when a family member is on their way home. He even got John Stewart to belly-laugh when he was a guest on the Tonight Show!