In this groundbreaking and deeply optimistic work, Mark Pesce reveals how seemingly unrelated developments in technology are converging to transform our culture and our relationship to the material world. Using today's popular interactive toys as signposts, including the Furby, LEGO Mindstorms, and the Sony PlayStation 2, Pesce takes readers on a dazzling journey into the near future, where the entire fabric of the material world becomes manipulable, programmable, and adaptable. Vast in its implications, wonderfully detailed in its examples, "The Playful World" succeeds as a work of accessible science and dazzling cultural inquiry.