  Evolution is one of the major omnipresent powers in the universe that has
been studied for about two centuries. Recent scientific and technical
developments make it possible to make the transition from passively
understanding to actively mastering evolution. As of today, the only area where
human experimenters can design and manipulate evolutionary processes in full is
that of Evolutionary Computing, where evolutionary processes are carried out in
a digital space, inside computers, in simulation. We argue that in the near
future it will be possible to move evolutionary computing outside such
imaginary spaces and make it physically embodied. In other words, we envision
the "Evolution of Things", rather than just the evolution of code, leading to a
new field of Embodied Artificial Evolution (EAE). The main objective of the
present paper is to offer an umbrella term and vision in order to aid the
development of this high potential research area. To this end, we introduce the
notion of EAE, discuss a few examples and applications, and elaborate on the
expected benefits as well as the grand challenges this developing field will
have to address.
