Vernor Vinge of "Rainbow's End" on Open Spimes- A Digital Gaia

"The next stage is an object that does not exist yet. It needs a noun, so that we can think about it. We can call it a "Spime," which is a neologism for an imaginary object that is still speculative. A Spime also has a kind of person who makes it and uses it, and that kind of person is somebody called a "Wrangler." At the moment, you are end-using Gizmos. My thesis here, my prophesy to you, is that, pretty soon, you will be wrangling Spimes.

"most important thing to know about Spimes is that they are precisely located in space and time. They have histories. They are recorded, tracked, inventoried, and always associated with a story.

"Spimes have identities, they are protagonists of a documented process.

"They are searchable, like Google. You can think of Spimes as being auto-Googling objects."
—Bruce Sterling,