Bruce Sterling coined the term ‘spime‘ to denote his vision of a future generation of objects following the convergence of a set of technologies and insights, objects that we shall be able to track in space and time throughout their lifecycle. Aside from new functions for the objects themselves and new modes of interaction, spimes could also help bring about a more sustainable world (think: tracking materials, conditions, usage, etc.).

On April 30th, Bruce gave a lecture together with Scott Klinker, a 3D designer in residence at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI, on the topic of spimes and the possible future they might bring about. Their talk can be viewed online at Google Video. Interestingly enough, the video contains an invitation “to team-up with Google to create a short documentary film that would portray a speculative future of life with SPIMES. Distributed online, this short film would convey the look and feel of SPIME scenarios as a provocation for widespread industry discussion about the new potentials of ubiquitous, ambient, searchable, geolocative products.”

Companies, labs and enthusiasts around the world are shaping up the so-called Internet of things, a world of blogjects.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 7th, 2007 at 22:33 and is filed under design, future, sustainability, technology, visions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.