Im very confused on what a infinity gem is in the MCU. It sounds like objects are the actual gems.

I'm thinking they're gonna somehow be transformed into actual gems when Avengers 3 comes around.

The Tesseract is most likely the Space Gem

The Aether is either the Reality or Power Gem (I'm betting on Reality)

and chances are we'll see the other four as the MCU continues.

Gems are too small. That's why they change the object.

Its a little confusing tho.

The objects are the gems. The people behind the film just don't want to go with the traditional things from comics so they tweak certain aspects of the comics in the films. I feel once all 6 of the gems/cubes/objects are gathered they will turn into the gems.

I assume this was revealed in Thor 2? Interesting... Seems the Infinity Gauntlet saga is definitely popping up somewhere.

The Defenders series will be before Avengers 3. I think that the Defenders and the Guardians of The Galaxy will come our of no where and help them to defeat Thanos.

By not making them "gems" it allows the writers to be more creative with the film content and give each "infinity stone" a more distinct personality and plot.