Rob Walker, Objects With Back Stories The continuum moves even further in the direction of raw information when you consider what tech experts call the “Internet of things” — more and more stuff produced with sensors and tags and emitting readable data. ReadWriteWeb pointed out that the number of objects (digital picture frames, GPS devices) added to the networks of AT&T and Verizon in the previous quarter was greater than the number of new human subscribers. Imagine, the site suggested, future bulletins on your Facebook feed like “Your toaster is using more electricity than it should be.” We appear to be inching toward a concept advanced in 2004 by the writer Bruce Sterling, who hypothesized objects he called “spimes” — embedded with technologies that carry, collect and communicate data — becoming “the protagonist of a documented process.”
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Rob Walker, Objects With Back Stories

The continuum moves even further in the direction of raw information when you consider what tech experts call the “Internet of things” — more and more stuff produced with sensors and tags and emitting readable data. ReadWriteWeb pointed out that the number of objects (digital picture frames, GPS devices) added to the networks of AT&T and Verizon in the previous quarter was greater than the number of new human subscribers. Imagine, the site suggested, future bulletins on your Facebook feed like “Your toaster is using more electricity than it should be.” We appear to be inching toward a concept advanced in 2004 by the writer Bruce Sterling, who hypothesized objects he called “spimes” — embedded with technologies that carry, collect and communicate data — becoming “the protagonist of a documented process.”