The digital virtual world is merging slowly with the physical world we are living in. As modern technologies reach to more places, people will use it to create an even more advanced society where possibilities are limited only by imagination.
Smartphones and tablets are now owned by more and more people. The accessibility to these smart devices, is transforming how people in the world access and use information. And as the prices of these devices and their data costs get cheaper, mobile devices revolution will benefit all segment of the world's population: from the most developed countries to the most remote places.
Smartphones and tablets have created one of the biggest impact to ease human's interaction with technology and business with a relatively small budget.
As people come online, they will benefit by having the massive resources the internet holds. And with mobile devices in everyone's hands, information transaction is never been easier with the world in just a few clicks/taps away.
With developing countries have access to the internet, people will be able to connect with others far away and very different from themselves. On the economic side, they can use the technology to enlarge their businesses, making them more efficient and effective by maximizing their profits.
What connectivity also brings is the ability to collect and use data. Information holds data that can give all the necessary tool to enhance people's living. Everyone in every places on earth benefit from digital data, making the internet a gamechanger to anyone that uses it. And to themselves, the massive information the internet has, can be harvested to create further advances in other cultural and industry aspects that never once understood.
The internet, owns by nobody yet by everybody, can clearly open new minds to develop new technologies that relies with it. Centralizing every piece of technology into one place creates an ecosystem where information management and decision making become effortless. As long as safeguards are in place to protect privacy and prevent data loss, the internet and anything that is connected to it can free its users from many small burdens - including errands, reminders, monitoring tasks, maintaining social relationship, preserving communication and others - that added pressure to our minds and focusing ability.
With the internet, the world is moving rapidly towards connectivity that will further change how and where people associate, gather-share information, and consume media. Experts and researchers foresee an ambient information environment where accessing the internet will be so effortless that people will be able to tap into it so easily "like electricity." Mobile, wearable, and embedded computing will be tied together in the Internet of Things, allowing people to connect into an enhanced artificial intelligence cloud-based information storage and sharing.
"The most useful impact is the ability to connect people. From that, everything flows."
To a notable extent, experts and researchers agree on the technology change that lies ahead: global and immersive networked computing environment built through the continued proliferation of smart sensors, cameras, software, databases, and massive data centers in a world-spanning information fabric known as the Internet of Things. “Augmented reality” enhancements to the real-world input with portable/wearable/implantable technologies. Disruption of business models (most notably impacting finance, entertainment, publishers of all sorts, and education). Tagging, databasing, and intelligent analytical mapping of the physical and social realms.
When talking about the internet and other technologies, computers are the integral part that comes with it. These general purpose device that can be programmed to carry out arithmetic or logical artificial operations, are the key foundation of the current Information Age. Other advances in this area is robotics, 3D printing, artificial intelligence and voice recognition. These technologies introduce efficiency into people's lives by providing more seamless forms of engagement.
By relying on these technologies, people as users can encompass both professional and personal sides of their lives, creating the possibility to use time more effectively each day. Computers are made to enhance and do operations that humans can't. They are created to improve humans' interactions, thoughts, skills and abilities, with or without direct touch. With the advance world of computers and the internet, the world we live in is slowly merging with the digital "unreal" world we created.
The internet can't be separated from other technologies that supports it. Although the internet is not the thing that "can be seen, felt or touched," it is just there to streamline operations for other pieces of technologies that thrive from it. As computers are getting cheaper, smaller and smarter, there is no saying that people will not be exploiting it to create further innovations.
Experts and researchers agree that these technologies, just like any other things in reality, have both positive and negative trends to extend and expand. For the good part, these technologies can revolutionize most human interaction, especially affecting health, education, work, politics, economics, and entertainment. And for the bad areas of concern, they can also eliminate privacy to an extend that it's no longer a necessity, interpersonal ethics, diminished unique and traditional cultures, surveillance, terror, crime, and may lead societies to question how best to establish security and trust while retaining civil liberties.
To prevent bad things to happen, human interference is a must. No technology can run on their own without surveillance or authorization. And if laws are needed, they must be able to preserve all aspects of humanity in our well being.
No matter how smart computers will become, if people want to see the next advance of digital revolution, they must be a step smarter than computers by using the things that computers, and super computers don't have: feelings and imaginations.