If you’re the type to buy a BMW, you’ll probably be pleased to learn your next one will learn your tastes in audio entertainment and retrieve a customized mix, while you sleep, over built-in Wi-Fi. I’m often dismissive about gewgaws in cars, but I have to admit it would be pretty cool to time shift NPR.

Don’t know about you, but I’m a total sucker for pictures of Mother Terra as seen from space. Lucky for me, then, that the ISS EarthKAM Archive is waiting to feed my jones…

Everyone’s headed for Second Life – the clothing outfitters, the motor vehicle companies, and now the book publishers. Penguin Books seem to be the first big player on the scene, that Doctorow fellow notwithstanding. Their first project was a launch of a virtual version of Neal Stephenson’s seminal Snow Crash, the novel in which the term ‘Metaverse’ was first coined. Now they are working on a proper bookstore, complete with books on the shelves that link to Amazon for your purchasing convenience. If the shopping malls in meatspace seem weird, the meta-mall is shaping up to put them in the shade.

The membrane between reality and its virtual twin is becoming increasingly permeable – things are starting to cross the border. I mentioned fabbing just the other day, and here’s an example of a fabbed object that is more than just a proof-of-concept – the first laser-sintered shoe, entirely produced by 3D printing methods, is a potentially marketable product. Or it will be, once they get the price margins down a little.

I don’t know if the rise of online, customizable geopolitical information is just eye candy for politically obsessed geeks or a real tool for an informed citizenry, but it’s sure interesting to watch unfold.