Spimes are objects that are traceable throughout their lifecycle, so that they can give birth to a new sustainable economy. The idea and concept was started by Bruce Sterling:

“Our material culture is not sustainable. Its resources are not renewable. We cannot turn our entire planet’s crust into obsolete objects. We need to locate valuable objects that are dead, and fold them back into the product stream. In order to do this, we need to know where they are, and what happened to them. We need to document the life cycles of objects. We need to know where to take them when they are defunct.”

The idea has also been linked to a future in which we would pay for downloadable designs, then make/print the objects at home or in close-at-home local fabrication shops. It’s an attractive idea, but one that suffers from the reproducibility of online designs and would require substantial policing to work, which is why I think it’s not very realistic expectation, and I believe a combination of open designs and relocalized production makes more sense.

But of course, there will be paid for design initiatives, just as we have iTunes and others paid music, but co-existing with a much larger open filesharing community. Similarly, I expect paid design sites to emerge.

And indeed, now they have, according to Springwise, which describes the UK-based SomeRightsReserved initiative:

“Tapping into the make-it-yourself trend, London-based SomeRightsReserved offers a range of downloadable blueprints for objects that consumers can build, adapt and personalise. Products on offer include everything from cardboard Tetris furniture to children’s mittens. Some can be created using hand-cutting and home-printing, others may require laser cutting or rapid prototyping. Prices range from free to GBP 10, and physical objects tend to rely on affordable everyday materials such as cardboard, acrylics and fluorescent tubing. The estimated costs for materials are displayed before the purchase is made.”

All of this is part of a revolution in the very nature of objects, which become a blend of physical and virtual, offline reality and online existence, which we cover through our P2P-Objects tag.

Trendwatching had a very stimulating report on what it called the “on-off” trend, the blending of the two worlds, with many rich examples.

For example, contrast the following:

– Mir:or: allows real life objects to become operational in metaverses:

“Mir:ror, a web-connected dish that gives weird and wonderful new functions to the objects placed on it. Users plug the Mir:ror into their computer using the USB connection and affix the supplied RFID tags to the objects of their choice. They then program the objects using an online interface, causing the action of their choice to occur when the object is placed on the Mir:ror.”

And tikitag:

“tikitag uses short-range, high-frequency RFID to let consumers and third-party application developers connect everyday items to online content or applications. To tap the connection, users of the technology need only touch a compatible device such as a cell phone to an item tagged with a corresponding sticker. Parents, for example, can use tikitag to link their toddler’s teddy bear to an online story about that same bear; museum visitors can wave an enabled mobile phone at a painting to call up the painter’s Wikipedia profile.”

Pachube seems equally world-changing: its “a service that enables you to connect, tag and share real time sensor data from objects, devices, buildings and environments around the world. The key aim is to facilitate interaction between remote environments, both physical and virtual.”

The opposite trend is just as true, it becomes increasingly possible to create physical counterparts to objects that previously only existed in metaverses, through the new techniques of 3D printing, etc.. which I largely cover in the category of Desktop-Manufacturing and P2P-Design. Here’s the example of Fabjectory, which allows to turn avators into real statuettes.

Finally, humans are also ‘objects’ that can be traced, given rise to the fear of Panspectropism, which is a topic we will have to return to.