Spime

Pro: Giant simulated self-replicating bacteria wandering 'round Second Life

Con: arrogantly asserted by Wikipedia's content cops to be theoretical Bruce Sterling pie-in-the-sky, and, as such, not deserving of an encyclopedia page.

Judge for yourself.

"You first encounter the Spime while searching on a Web site, as a virtual image. The image is likely a glamorous publicity photo, but it is also deep-linked to the genuine, three-dimensional computer-designed engineering specifications of the object -- engineering tolerances, material specifications and so forth.

Until you express your desire for this object, it does not exist. You buy a spime with a credit card, which is to say you legally guarantee that you want it. It therefore comes to be. Your account information is embedded in that transaction. The object is automatically integrated into your spime management inventory system. After the purchase, manufacture, and delivery of your spime, a link in established through customer relations management software, involving you in the future development of this object. This link, at a minimum, includes the full list of spime ingredients (basically, the object's material and energy flows), its unique ID code, its history of ownership, geographical tracking hardware and software to establish its position in space and time, various handy recipes for post-purchase customization, a public site for interaction and live views of the production change, and bluebook value. The spime is able to update itself in your database, and to inform you of required service calls, with appropriate links to service centers.

At the end of its lifespan, the spime is deactivated, removed from your presence by specialists, entirely disassembled, and folded back into the manufacturing stream. The data it generated remains available for historical analysis by a wide variety of interested parties."
- posted by cjb @ 11:51 AM