Haircuts will finally be automated and machine-precise. Intuitive systems will help us with information management and decision making. There will be memory prosthetics (calendar reminders and to-do lists) and social prosthetics (instant connections with friends who have relevant expertise in whatever task you are facing). Suggestion engines will be consistently stimulating our thinking processes. My virtual me will be somewhere else. Our ways to procrastinate will be endless. We will talk a lot more. Our machines will recognize us. We will be able to make them move by thinking about moving. Instant language translation and virtual reality interaction will make the world seem small. Certain differences will perhaps never be fully overcome (cultural nuance and time zones) – though we might build a giant space mirror that causes the whole Earth to light up at the same time. Fewer and fewer jobs will require a physical presence. More jobs will be automated. Rising connectivity will help countries discover their competitive advantage. The world’s best graphic designers might come from Botswana. We will be able to curate our life stories. We will be able to recreate our wedding ceremony for people who were too ill to attend. We’ll be safer. Nobody dies in a virtual world. Our physical and mental wellbeing will be constantly monitored. There will be instant datadriven digital feedback loops. There will be data loss and data leaks. There will be near-permanent data storage and data remanence. We will pay identity managers to bring us quarterly reports tracking the changing shape of our online identity and reputation. Our identity will be hacked, stolen, misused and appropriated. Our identity will be a powerful currency. We will buy false identities. We will insure against reputation damage. Total connectivity (‘connectedness’) and data-rich environments engender the end of control. We will no longer be able to control how we are perceived by others. The cost of remaining anonymous will be irrelevance (low ranking). We will suspect those who don’t have a device. We can hold anybody to account. Parents will have to decide to give their children unique names (easy online identification and location) or to provide them with a common name so they can live with some degree of shelter from internet indexes. Mainstream media will report less and validate more. Mainstream media will become aggregator, custodian and verifier (credibility filter). We will see the rise of local reporting on sensitive matters. We will rely on encrypted anonymous news gathering. Celebrities will start their own news portal about a conflict they care deeply about. Some people will be digital radioactive. We will not have delete buttons. Websites we visit, who we include in our online network, what others who are connected to us do, say and share can be read back to us in court or printed on the front page of a newspaper. We will all be publishing, since we’re all on the web. We will be celebrity, paparazzo and voyeur. We will share more than we’re aware of. We will not be heroes, we will have to account for the past. We will want eject buttons that allow us to liberate all of our data from a given platform. We will tell our children never to give data to a stranger. We will begin to favor peer-to-peer networking over internet networking. Particular incidents will raise issues at stake. We will have to fight harder for our privacy and security. We will have surveillance bugs in our home (our mobile devices). We will provide intelligence on our selves. And on others. We will be punished for having encryption and proxy software on our devices. Our webcams will be remotely turned on. We will be guilty by association. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time will take on new meaning. – The New Digital Age, Eric Schmidt, Jared Cohen