What do you think?
Rate this book
The Spatial Web: How web 3.0 will connect humans, machines and AI to transform the world
The visions of the future imagined in our sci-fi films, TV shows, books, and games depict worlds where advanced technologies project us into fantastically immersive, interactive experiences that magically integrate the virtual and physical worlds. Blade Runner, The Matrix, Star Wars, Avatar, Star Trek, Ready Player One and Avengers show us futuristic worlds where holograms, intelligent robots, smart devices, virtual avatars, digital transactions, and universe-scale teleportation work together perfectly, somehow seamlessly combining the virtual and the physical with the mechanical and the biological.
Science fiction has done an excellent job describing a vision of the future where the digital and physical merge naturally into one — in a way that just works everywhere, for everyone. However, none of these visionary fictional works go so far as to describe exactly how this would actually be accomplished. While it has inspired many of us to ask the question—How do we enable science fantasy to become....science fact?
The Spatial Web achieves this by first describing how exponentially powerful computing technologies are creating a great “Convergence.” How Augmented and Virtual Reality will enable us to overlay our information and imaginations onto the world. How Artificial Intelligence will infuse the environments and objects around us with adaptive intelligence. How the Internet of Things and Robotics will enable our vehicles, appliances, clothing, furniture, and homes to become connected and embodied with the power to see, feel, hear, smell, touch and move things in the world, and how Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies will secure our data and enable real-time transactions between the human, machine and virtual economies of the future.
The book then dives deeply into the challenges and shortcomings of the World Wide Web, the rise of fake news and surveillance capitalism in Web 2.0 and the risk of algorithmic terrorism and biological hacking and “fake-reality” in Web 3.0. It raises concerns about the threat that emerging technologies pose in the hands of rogue actors whether human, algorithmic, corporate or state-sponsored and calls for common sense governance and global cooperation. It calls for business leaders, organizations and governments to not only support interoperable standards for software code, but critically, for ethical, and social codes as well.
Authors Gabriel René and Dan Mapes describe in vivid detail how a new “spatial” protocol is required in order to connect the various exponential technologies of the 21st century into an integrated network capable of tracking and managing the real-time activities of our cities, monitoring and adjusting the supply chains that feed them, optimizing our farms and natural resources, automating our manufacturing and distribution, transforming marketing and commerce, accelerating our global economies, running advanced planet-scale simulations and predictions, and even bridging the gap between our interior individual reality and our exterior collective one. Enabling the ability for humans, machines and AI to communicate, collaborate and coordinate activities in the world at a global scale and how the thoughtful application of these technologies could lead to an unprecedented opportunity to create a truly global “networked” civilization or "Smart World.”
The book artfully shifts between cyberpunk futurism, cautionary tale-telling, and life-affirming call-to-arms. It challenges us to consider the importance of today’s technological choices as individuals, organizations, and as a species, as we face the historic opportunity we have to transform the web, the world, and our very definition of reality.
Science fiction has done an excellent job describing a vision of the future where the digital and physical merge naturally into one — in a way that just works everywhere, for everyone. However, none of these visionary fictional works go so far as to describe exactly how this would actually be accomplished. While it has inspired many of us to ask the question—How do we enable science fantasy to become....science fact?
The Spatial Web achieves this by first describing how exponentially powerful computing technologies are creating a great “Convergence.” How Augmented and Virtual Reality will enable us to overlay our information and imaginations onto the world. How Artificial Intelligence will infuse the environments and objects around us with adaptive intelligence. How the Internet of Things and Robotics will enable our vehicles, appliances, clothing, furniture, and homes to become connected and embodied with the power to see, feel, hear, smell, touch and move things in the world, and how Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies will secure our data and enable real-time transactions between the human, machine and virtual economies of the future.
The book then dives deeply into the challenges and shortcomings of the World Wide Web, the rise of fake news and surveillance capitalism in Web 2.0 and the risk of algorithmic terrorism and biological hacking and “fake-reality” in Web 3.0. It raises concerns about the threat that emerging technologies pose in the hands of rogue actors whether human, algorithmic, corporate or state-sponsored and calls for common sense governance and global cooperation. It calls for business leaders, organizations and governments to not only support interoperable standards for software code, but critically, for ethical, and social codes as well.
Authors Gabriel René and Dan Mapes describe in vivid detail how a new “spatial” protocol is required in order to connect the various exponential technologies of the 21st century into an integrated network capable of tracking and managing the real-time activities of our cities, monitoring and adjusting the supply chains that feed them, optimizing our farms and natural resources, automating our manufacturing and distribution, transforming marketing and commerce, accelerating our global economies, running advanced planet-scale simulations and predictions, and even bridging the gap between our interior individual reality and our exterior collective one. Enabling the ability for humans, machines and AI to communicate, collaborate and coordinate activities in the world at a global scale and how the thoughtful application of these technologies could lead to an unprecedented opportunity to create a truly global “networked” civilization or "Smart World.”
The book artfully shifts between cyberpunk futurism, cautionary tale-telling, and life-affirming call-to-arms. It challenges us to consider the importance of today’s technological choices as individuals, organizations, and as a species, as we face the historic opportunity we have to transform the web, the world, and our very definition of reality.
216 pages, Paperback
Published August 27, 2019
301 people are currently reading
584 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
May 16, 2021
Unless you really don't know what is happening in tech just skip it. Entire book should be 10min YT video. Take every possible word around technology, add "smart" and "spatial" to it and you have it.
I'm not saying it isn't a concept for a future but a level in this book is from marketing material of 5G, AI on blockchain provider - everything will be "smart" and we will be connected in "spatial" network.
I'm not saying it isn't a concept for a future but a level in this book is from marketing material of 5G, AI on blockchain provider - everything will be "smart" and we will be connected in "spatial" network.
September 13, 2022
This book is about the future of the Web, and the supposed trajectory that it will go through. Web 3.0 is the name of the combination of technologies that have been emerging in the last decade or so, including VR / AR interfaces, distributed ledger technologies such as blockchain. Also, IoT, AI, Quantum Computing, etc. Combining all of these should result in something that the authors call the Spatial Web.
Currently, the state of the Web is such that we are interfering with it mainly through our screens. And it still is a technology of transferring pages, and protocols and languages that it uses are limited to that. For example, HTML and HTTP were not designed to accommodate transferring some stuff in Spatial environments. That is the main premise of the book, that in the future we will be having new protocols and languages to implement all the Web 3.0 technologies that I listed above.
Also, the authors argue the importance of blockchain-based decentralized identity and say that to facilitate the possibility of having one giant Web of not only interconnected pages but everything interconnected, including all the physical objects and even us, humans, we need to have a way of identifying something or someone globally, without having separate accounts for each service on the Web.
I see a couple of problems with all these. First of all, it will be a huge distraction from the actuality. The last couple of decades of advancement in technologies caused people to be disconnected from the actual reality around them. We are always doing something, rather than just being. And true fulfillment can not be found in doing, but in just consciously being in the moment. This is what mystical traditions are trying to teach us for the last 5000 years, but we don't listen. Imagine the level of disconnection from reality when VR / AR will become as advanced as this book claims it will. That's scary.
Also, the problem I see is the lack of a centralized arbiter. The problem of decentralization from the dawn of civilization was corruption, ego, and selfishness of humans. That's just the nature of a human being. Without a very deep understanding of that nature, we can not have advanced technology that we'll interface with. Everything that human touches become a tool for his or her selfish motives, and without proper rules and protocols, this selfishness can become disastrous. Hopefully, we'll learn all the lessons that history teaches us about the human ego and build technologies according to correct values and principles.
So, in the end, the book paints a very positive picture of a technological future, which is good. But it's just a vision, not sure how it will unfold in the years to come.
Currently, the state of the Web is such that we are interfering with it mainly through our screens. And it still is a technology of transferring pages, and protocols and languages that it uses are limited to that. For example, HTML and HTTP were not designed to accommodate transferring some stuff in Spatial environments. That is the main premise of the book, that in the future we will be having new protocols and languages to implement all the Web 3.0 technologies that I listed above.
Also, the authors argue the importance of blockchain-based decentralized identity and say that to facilitate the possibility of having one giant Web of not only interconnected pages but everything interconnected, including all the physical objects and even us, humans, we need to have a way of identifying something or someone globally, without having separate accounts for each service on the Web.
I see a couple of problems with all these. First of all, it will be a huge distraction from the actuality. The last couple of decades of advancement in technologies caused people to be disconnected from the actual reality around them. We are always doing something, rather than just being. And true fulfillment can not be found in doing, but in just consciously being in the moment. This is what mystical traditions are trying to teach us for the last 5000 years, but we don't listen. Imagine the level of disconnection from reality when VR / AR will become as advanced as this book claims it will. That's scary.
Also, the problem I see is the lack of a centralized arbiter. The problem of decentralization from the dawn of civilization was corruption, ego, and selfishness of humans. That's just the nature of a human being. Without a very deep understanding of that nature, we can not have advanced technology that we'll interface with. Everything that human touches become a tool for his or her selfish motives, and without proper rules and protocols, this selfishness can become disastrous. Hopefully, we'll learn all the lessons that history teaches us about the human ego and build technologies according to correct values and principles.
So, in the end, the book paints a very positive picture of a technological future, which is good. But it's just a vision, not sure how it will unfold in the years to come.
March 9, 2022
2.5 rounded up.
July 7, 2022
This book is series of brainstorming sessions around future applications/dynamics/interactions with Web3 technology. If nothing else, it provided a repository of mental images with which I can better visualize what's coming. 3.5 stars.
“It could enable an open and interoperable new generation of the web—a Web 3.0 era that secures the privacy and property rights of individuals while ensuring secure and trustworthy interactions and transactions between the human, machine, and virtual economies. This future literally adds a new dimension to the web. It enables —The Spatial Web.”
“It could enable an open and interoperable new generation of the web—a Web 3.0 era that secures the privacy and property rights of individuals while ensuring secure and trustworthy interactions and transactions between the human, machine, and virtual economies. This future literally adds a new dimension to the web. It enables —The Spatial Web.”
December 1, 2020
Spatial Web is about one potential end-state we could reach with the convergence of the various threads in computing today.
The main takeaway for me the author's perception of the problem with Web 2.0 which is the lack of accountability in how all our data is being processed and used (like how our location data is shared widely and affects our day-to-day lives) and the consequent design of Web 3.0 stack with privacy guarantees from blockchain technologies. I primarily took this book to understand how the author mixed in AI into their design but that part was very limited and hand-wavy. Also, the idea proposed in the book reads more like a revolutionary idea if you set the baseline as Web 2.0 as suggested by the author. Instead if we set the baseline to be the current state of HCI in general, then the idea reads like an end-state.
Recommend this book to those who want to quickly catch up on computing trends like AR, VR, Blockchain, AI and how they can be made to interact with each other for one possible future called 'Spatial Web'.
The main takeaway for me the author's perception of the problem with Web 2.0 which is the lack of accountability in how all our data is being processed and used (like how our location data is shared widely and affects our day-to-day lives) and the consequent design of Web 3.0 stack with privacy guarantees from blockchain technologies. I primarily took this book to understand how the author mixed in AI into their design but that part was very limited and hand-wavy. Also, the idea proposed in the book reads more like a revolutionary idea if you set the baseline as Web 2.0 as suggested by the author. Instead if we set the baseline to be the current state of HCI in general, then the idea reads like an end-state.
Recommend this book to those who want to quickly catch up on computing trends like AR, VR, Blockchain, AI and how they can be made to interact with each other for one possible future called 'Spatial Web'.
December 12, 2021
Excellent primer on Web3. For anyone who understands the basic concepts of blockchain, identity, AR, and VR, the first quarter of this book will seem very basic but it does a great job laying the foundation for anyone not familiar with the concepts that make up Web3. It goes into detail on the opportunities and risks we have with Web3 and does an exceptional job using examples to paint a picture of what the world could look like.
I knocked off one star because (1) there were a few typos that should’ve been caught and because (2) I felt like it wasn’t super forthcoming with how far off some of the concepts they talk about really are (e.g. standing in Times Square with personalized ads curated by your personal AI).
Anyways, highly recommend this one. Not too dense and we should all be familiar with the opportunity and challenges Web3 will bring.
I knocked off one star because (1) there were a few typos that should’ve been caught and because (2) I felt like it wasn’t super forthcoming with how far off some of the concepts they talk about really are (e.g. standing in Times Square with personalized ads curated by your personal AI).
Anyways, highly recommend this one. Not too dense and we should all be familiar with the opportunity and challenges Web3 will bring.
September 13, 2019
Nerd alert!
Great read if technology and futuristic thinking get your pulse pounding. #dayjob
Great read if technology and futuristic thinking get your pulse pounding. #dayjob
May 10, 2021
Being a software developer, I'm interested in practical technologies and applications. This book describes very high-level concepts of what revolutionary things are coming in next few decades. Frankly, Spacial Web was a concept I didn't give enough attention before, and that book convinced me that I should get myself ready for new technologies that will play major role in future Spacial Web.
However, I found that book a bit hard to comprehend and follow, most likely because of my unpreparedness to be exposed to such a revolutionary view. As a developer, I'm used to learning new concepts through hands-on practical projects, where you learn about high level concepts starting from the lower levels. Being overwhelmed with conceptual paradigm shift was a little bit too much for me. Having read about two thirds of it, I decided to park it for the future, once I get familiar with the technologies presented in the book, in more detail:
- blockchain;
- virtual reality and augmented reality;
- Internet of Things;
- edge computing.
However, I found that book a bit hard to comprehend and follow, most likely because of my unpreparedness to be exposed to such a revolutionary view. As a developer, I'm used to learning new concepts through hands-on practical projects, where you learn about high level concepts starting from the lower levels. Being overwhelmed with conceptual paradigm shift was a little bit too much for me. Having read about two thirds of it, I decided to park it for the future, once I get familiar with the technologies presented in the book, in more detail:
- blockchain;
- virtual reality and augmented reality;
- Internet of Things;
- edge computing.
Read
May 6, 2020A truly fascinating look into the future
I found this book to be both fascinating and frightening. Technology junkies will love it, but even those who are not as techno-savvy will be able to understand where we're headed and the possiblities that exist, along with the potential pitfalls. I believe the authors did a very good job of laying out what the future may hold, while also making the reader aware of the hazards (and possible solutions) that will come with this next phase of inter-connectivity. Truly an eye-opening look into the future.
I found this book to be both fascinating and frightening. Technology junkies will love it, but even those who are not as techno-savvy will be able to understand where we're headed and the possiblities that exist, along with the potential pitfalls. I believe the authors did a very good job of laying out what the future may hold, while also making the reader aware of the hazards (and possible solutions) that will come with this next phase of inter-connectivity. Truly an eye-opening look into the future.
August 27, 2021
Crucial information for understanding our modern age and where we're heading
Very relevant for our times. For anyone who wants to have a clear vision of where technology seems to be taking us, this book has a necessary piece of the puzzle. Eye-opening and misconception-shattering. We're on the brink of a major revolution in how we do things as a civilization on the grandest scales, and the spatial web is one of the main forces causing this phenomenal shift. Highly recommended for futurists, big thinkers, the techno savvy, and the general public alike.
Very relevant for our times. For anyone who wants to have a clear vision of where technology seems to be taking us, this book has a necessary piece of the puzzle. Eye-opening and misconception-shattering. We're on the brink of a major revolution in how we do things as a civilization on the grandest scales, and the spatial web is one of the main forces causing this phenomenal shift. Highly recommended for futurists, big thinkers, the techno savvy, and the general public alike.
February 2, 2023
This dude's living in 3023...
In all seriousness, this book severly lacks content or any depth to anything that's being discussed. There's a lot of repetition and most of the text consists of explaining the goals and possibilities of Web3.0 technology.
Just watch a short youtube video instead of reading this and you'll know just as much.
In case you're interested what the goal is:
Currently there's a clear distinction between online and real world experiences. The goal is to merge these two worlds together.
In all seriousness, this book severly lacks content or any depth to anything that's being discussed. There's a lot of repetition and most of the text consists of explaining the goals and possibilities of Web3.0 technology.
Just watch a short youtube video instead of reading this and you'll know just as much.
In case you're interested what the goal is:
Currently there's a clear distinction between online and real world experiences. The goal is to merge these two worlds together.
January 3, 2023
Good insights into the future of the Web. I was triggered to pick up this book after listening to an interview from a so called “expert” who excessively reference Web 3.0 as only revolves around blockchain and NFT. But from reading this book, one can learn that Web 3.0 is in fact a combination of many things (IoT, sensors, AR/VR, blockchain, etc). It’s a good read to brush up one’s understanding of the future of the internet
January 5, 2022
Very informative of the implications and gameplan of those who embrace a new "Web 3.0", but lacks any coherent criticism or multi-faceted perspective as to get lost in the so-called inevitability of this specific vision of the future. Who says we have to embrace all of this?
January 21, 2022
This is a fantastic read for visionaries and those interested/invested in the technology of tomorrow. The web 3.0 era is coming upon as and this book covers the ins and outs of web 3.0. Cryptocurrency, blockchain, AI, AR/VR, Spatial Computing, the list goes on.
October 22, 2020
Certainly the road to the future. A must read for insights on where technology convergence is leading us.
February 2, 2021
I didn’t find enough here that wasn’t in other readings.
November 19, 2021
Short and introductory read to many concepts that will make up the future of the world (e.g. IoT, AI, web3 etc).
January 30, 2022
Too optimistic.
February 6, 2022
Great book for anyone wanting to gain a deeper understanding of web 3.0
May 4, 2022
Interesting argument regarding to future possibilities of spatial web, although it doesn’t provide valuable knoweledge. Could have been one page article.
September 7, 2022
If you are a CS student you already know most of these things.You can relate 85% context that you know. this book could be written in short
June 27, 2023
Insightful but repetitive. A good editor would have edited the book to one fourth the size.
November 10, 2019
The spatial web is a black swan moment in the history of technology and humanity and René and Mapes are its heralds.
A black swan is an occurrence or innovation characterized as:
1) a surprise
2) having massive impact
3) rationalized as predictable in hindsight
Examples: steam engine, dynamite, aluminum, the automobile, the radio, the aircraft, the transistor, the satellite, the internet
The powerful building blocks – Virtual and Augmented Reality, Internet of Things, Robotics, Drones, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency – all sound like cocktail party buzzwords…until you read this book and understand how they can (and should) fit together.
The Spatial Web is more than a book. It’s a playbook for building an electrifying and ethically-aligned future. Buckle up.
A black swan is an occurrence or innovation characterized as:
1) a surprise
2) having massive impact
3) rationalized as predictable in hindsight
Examples: steam engine, dynamite, aluminum, the automobile, the radio, the aircraft, the transistor, the satellite, the internet
The powerful building blocks – Virtual and Augmented Reality, Internet of Things, Robotics, Drones, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency – all sound like cocktail party buzzwords…until you read this book and understand how they can (and should) fit together.
The Spatial Web is more than a book. It’s a playbook for building an electrifying and ethically-aligned future. Buckle up.
September 5, 2019
Amazing and exciting!
Your book brilliantly interweaves current tech, projections, imagination, and warnings about where it's all going. Absolutely loved it, and am more psyched out than ever about what's possible. The potential for a smart world will keep pushing mankind through an amazing tipping point into a new revolution of culture and connection.
Your book brilliantly interweaves current tech, projections, imagination, and warnings about where it's all going. Absolutely loved it, and am more psyched out than ever about what's possible. The potential for a smart world will keep pushing mankind through an amazing tipping point into a new revolution of culture and connection.
February 26, 2025
BlockChain+A.I.+AR/VR/IoT=the Spatial WEB.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews