If reading an 83-page Apple patent application isn't your bag then at least skim this summary: Apple exploring wireless system for quantifying the unquantifiable over on AppleInsider. The "sprawling patent" talks of "sensing systems" that collect data about what happens to objects as they move through space and time. Although the article doesn't use this term Apple are essentially applying for patents on a variety of types of spime, one of those technologies that, like the barcode, will have both a sudden ubiquity and a profound effect on how we view the world of manufactured objects that surrounds us.

If you want to indulge in a little further reading on what's coming next then try When Blobjects Rule the Earth. If your interest is sufficiently piqued follow-up with  Shaping Things; both the speech and the pamphlet are by Bruce Sterling who coined this particular neologism. In fact I believe spimes first appeared, but were not referred to as such, in his 1998 novel Distraction, which is well worth a read.