There’s an excellent article discussing Will Wright’s upcoming videogame Spore (reLink1, reLink2) in yesterday’s New York Times. The piece, written by Steven Johnston and titled “The Long Zoom” (Link), is a great read. Of real interest to me though is this bit toward the end:

Everyone’s desk is populated by plastic action figures of Spore creatures, manufactured in-house by Wright’s employees using a 3-D printer that can generate a physical toy in a matter of minutes from a computer model. (Electronic Arts is investigating the possibility of selling customized Spore critters in toy stores as a side business.)

Considering that the article’s foundation is based on the so-called “Powers of Ten” idea which is supposed to “expand the way we think”, it struck me as odd that Johnston didn’t call out a different kind of lens: instead of just zooming in and out of physical space we may be entering an age where another lens breachs the transreality barrier between information and physicality.

Y’know, this reminds me of recent news regarding teleportation (Link):

Until now scientists have teleported similar objects such as light or single atoms over short distances from one spot to another in a split second.

But Professor Eugene Polzik and his team at the Niels Bohr Institute at Copenhagen University in Denmark have made a breakthrough by using both light and matter.

“It is one step further because for the first time it involves teleportation between light and matter, two different objects. One is the carrier of information and the other one is the storage medium,” Polzik explained in an interview on Wednesday.

Maybe it’s not so much a different lens as a longer zoom… all the way down to the quantum level.

Okay. Now my brain hurts.