The purpose of these 'smart objects' is to bridge the gap between the physical and the digital. This is achieved by giving digital capabilities to physical objects such as barcodes that can make computers carry out tasks, digital interactive blocks, and interactive USB's that share information from social networkng sites upon contact.

P ersonally, it seems to me like these object are depriving the internet and the digital world of its most valued characteristics: the fact that it is not physical,and so cannot be lost, and also the organization that it allows. Giving everyday objects digital capabilities that would interact with the digital world is simply an impractical fancy.

These are objects that can retreive information independent of human presence and so maximize the range of information that can be acquired.