This small book by Bruce Sterling combines science fiction with an imaginative prediction for how we will relate to our designed objects in the future. He moves through classifying the objects we currently interact with - Artifacts, Machines, Products, and Gizmos. In order to talk about how we might ultimately interact with objects Sterling coins a word called spimes, which are:

SPIMES are manufactured objects whos informational support is so overwhelmingly extensive and rich that they are regarded as material instantiations of an immaeterial system. SPIMES being and end as data. They are designed on screens, fabricated by digital means, and precisely tracked through space and time through-out their earthly sojourn.

SPIMES are sustainable, enhanceable, uniquely indentifiable, adn made of substances that can and will be folded back into the production stream of future SPIMES. Eminently data-mineable, SPIMES are protagonists of an historical process.

The concept was interesting and engaging, and I am still trying to wrap my head around what sorts of things this idea might mean for designers. It also presented some new possibilities for an object to be a hybrid of a digital and physical world. Of course it could be disastrous, but its also fuel for the imagination.

** Just found a supplemental video where Sterling talks more about spimes, and how they might contribute to an Internet of Things.