Spimes and the Internet of Things


Novelist-cum-design-critic Bruce Sterling has predicted that in the future, interaction designers will be creating and working with a type of object that he calls a spime. Spimes are networked, context-aware, self-monitoring, self-documenting, uniquely identified objects that exude data about themselves and their environments. Spimes reveal every piece of metadata (their location, their owner, the date they were made, usage patterns, and so on) about themselves. They can be tracked through space (the "sp-" part of the term) and time (the "-ime" part) throughout their entire life cycles, from their prototyping to their eventual destruction.

These spimes will likely have RFID tags that identify them and allow them to communicate. Using sensors and wireless technology, they will communicate with each other and the Internet like a swarm. People will be able to locate and modify spimes and other similarly enabled objects and to add information to them, such as "These are my shoes."

Spimes will create an informational Web: the Internet of things, the uses (and abuses) for which boggle the mind. Imagine having a list of every item in your house, down to the smallest pack of matches. Lose your mobile phone in a taxi? Simply find where it is in real time.

Note

Of course, the privacy issues related to an Internet of things boggle the mind as well. Imagine thieves being able to find all the most expensive items within several blocks, or governments being able easily and instantly to see who you just called on your phone.


The data that this Internet of things will reveal will be fascinating and frightening. Sterling uses the example of tennis shoes. Spime tennis shoes, over time, could reveal what happens to their rubber soles at the end of their life cycle: are they being recycled into playground coverings or are they becoming aerosol carcinogens? Using this data, we will be able to see with clarity the impact of products on our world. Spimes offer the possibility of accountability in products.

As designers such as Adam Greenfield (see the interview later in this chapter) have noted, what is missing from the idea of an Internet of things (or at least from the nomenclature) is people. How do people work with and affect an Internet of things? While things may have meaning in and of themselves, they derive (at least) an additional layer of meaning when used by people. How interaction designers place human beings into the Internet of things is a challenge for the future.




Designing for Interaction(c) Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices
Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices
ISBN: 0321432061
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 110
Authors: Dan Saffer

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