Summary:
In the year 2030 we will be surrounded by intelligent everyday objects, which communicate among themselves. The Technology itsself becomes invisible. …

John Cohn photograph: “At your service: IBM scientist John Cohn sees us talking to smart machines in the future – mind control, altough technologically feasible – will not be accepted by mankind.”

Computer as we know them today – experts agree on that – will play only a minor role. Instead, the things around us will become intelligent. … Technology will then appear in the form of computing capacity not as a device. Just like we receive power from a power plug without the need to buy a power generator. At the same time we have to get used to continuous, inaudible whispering. All those smart devices will communicate with themselves and merge to the internet of things.  The human user will then only choose the desired service. Leah Buechley at MIT’s Media Lab describes a scenario where the smart tapestry wirelessly communicates with  the computer or the handy. Such smart tapestry could help to remote monitor elderly people.

Mainly by speech we will communicate with technology in 2030 – that’s what John Cohn sees it. As a senior scientist at IBM, he looks into the future. “Even with everyday objects we will be able to communicate via speech. This could be the toaster, the fridge or the car. You will never have to deal with dumb things again,” he says. However, this raises also new problems: “Is it acceptable to yell at our mobile phone?”.
Similar topics are also being researched at T-Gallery, the future lab of Telekom.  How do we interact with smart things? Is it ok to use the informal “Du” or do peope prefer the formal “Sie” when they interact with technology? Among the technologies researched one approach is a advanced smartphone as the central point of interaction with our smart environment. Philipp McKinney, Chief technologist at HP prognosts how such a multi-talent could look like. …

Instead to improve the human being, Japanese researchers work ambitiously on an alternative – the roboter. Tomotaka Takahashi believes that in 20 years we will have roboter helping us at home. …

There is no common opinion among experts, when and if at all we will eventually reach truly “artificial intelligence”.
IBM scientist John Cohn estimates that between 2020 and 2025, computer chips will process as fast as the human brain – and in 2030, chips will most likely reach the complexity of the human brain.
“Does some kind of consciousness develop through complexity and programming? This question is open,” explains Rüdiger Spies from market research and analyst firm IDC. “If the answer is only a little bit of yes, then the next level of evolution will be much faster and happening between robots and supercomputers.”