littleBits are Lego-like circuit components that fit together magnetically. The Japanese used them to build Optimus Prime. Here is a video demonstrating an intriguing use of the littleBits technology:
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Note that the beverage produced by this ultra-futuristic coffee maker was invisible. Why is that? In the future, we will live so much inside our minds that it won’t matter whether the things we eat and drink actually exist. The guys at littleBits understand this. They recognize that existent food items are overrated: hot coffee can scald people, burnt toast causes cancer, eggs have salmonella. But if we eliminated the physical incarnation of these troublesome edibles, leaving only the idea of them — well, all our problems would be solved.
This video really does justice to the de-physicalization concept, and as a bonus it was set to the snazzy Hot Chip song “Ready For The Floor”.
Filed under: Ads, Design, Products, Videos, abuse of facts, burnt toast, circuit boards, circuitry, coffee, culture, de-physicilization, drinking, eating, eggs, electronics, entertainment, future, Hot Chip, humor, Japan, Lego, littleBits, Optimus Prime, predictions, Ready For The Floor, reality
Bitlifting 
So this is what they mean by paying for virtual goods.
That’s exactly right, greg. And the fact is, we’ve done a poor job at making ‘virtual’ goods virtual. For example, in Second Life, you can still see your food and coffee — why not make all of this invisible? It would cut down the polygon count and ultimately save bandwidth and money, while creating a more zen and matrix-like environment. And why stop there! We could make the houses invisible — not too many houses, there would always have to be a number of visible houses to act as landmarks, in order to navigate the environment. Now, the people who owned these houses would be pissed off, with their property going invisible after paying all those Linden dollars. That’s why it would be a rotating system: every week, a random selection of 10% of all Second Life houses would disappear, to be re-materialized in 7 days. Totally fair, and think of the bandwidth savings! I should be in business.