2015 World Economic Forum Highlights

There were plenty of highlights from the 2015 World Economic Forum in Davos and some of these are included below, read on, if you are curious about what tomorrow will bring.

During the panel discussion “The Future of the Digital Economy” Google's Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt was asked about the future of the web and he went on to say that "The Internet will disappear." Yep, He said that. Google's oxymoronic executive chairman explains that we'll all be experiencing our digital connections as a seamless part of our everyday life. In his vision of everyone's fantastic futureworld … "There will be so many IP addresses and so many devices, sensors, things that you are wearing, things that you are seamlessly interacting with that you won't even sense it."

"It will be part of your presence all the time. Imagine you walk into a room, and the room is dynamic. And with your permission and all of that, you are interacting with the things going on in the room." And, just to clarify, in case you were wondering???the “it” that he is referring to is the INTERNET! Brilliant, I say, just brilliant! I imagine his comments were really intended to get people excited and draw attention to his presence, because there were a few other speakers who also caused a sensation when talking about privacy, technology and changes in society and how individual interactions with these issues will one day be so much of an afterthought, that it won't even matter.

Essentially, they are expanding on the concepts of a 'new normal' that we are continually being introduced to, whether we like it or not!

With regard to issues of pervasive surveillance and of our vanishing privacy, Professor Margo Seltzer says that day is here and here to stay! “Privacy as we knew it in the past is no longer feasible… How we conventionally think of privacy is dead.”

“It’s not whether this is going to happen, it’s already happening,” - “We live in a surveillance state today.” - Professor Margo Seltzer

In the not so distant future we will be perpetually monitored and that miniaturized drone technology will be used to extract DNA and biometric information from us, for government and corporate use.

Sophia Roosth also caused a sensation when she added - “We are at the dawn of the age of genetic McCarthyism.”

So, don't be frightened. It's not going to hurt much, big brother loves you and you will be happier, because you love your big brother.

These dreamy eyed seers of our future  think most people will be willing to trade privacy for convenience, especially if there might be some benefit. Of course, this way of thinking will be more acceptable for younger people than older people, so no one should worry too much yet. It will take a lot of psychological conditioning over a long period of time before people will be wholeheartedly embracing these ideas, but the wheels of that propaganda machine are already rolling and the speakers in Davos Switzerland are making that known.

“People often behave better when they have the sense that their actions are being watched.” - Anthony Goldbloom

These visionaries may be the first of such subjects to experience the 'internet of all things,' and I hope that they are. I also hope that they enjoy that life. The truth of the matter will boil down to something much simpler to understand and that is, to implement these fantastic ideas it will cost far too much than whatever information obtained could be worth. There is no such infrastructure in place or even capable of such an enormous amount of data. This is not to say that their ideas won't happen, but that they won't happen anytime soon.

Instead, what is likely to happen is that the future 'internet of all things' will gradually become more and more of our everyday lives.

Google has many projects in the works, but not all of their ideas are really good ideas. Google Glass is getting the ax and maybe one of their worst ideas was internet via hot air balloons. Now they are getting serious and spending in the right way with SpaceX and further developing satellite internet.

These guys are good, but often times they can't see the forest ahead, because of that really big tree in front of them obscuring their view. What I mean by that is developing something that works with all of the available radio waves and of course building a broad network of Bluetooth connectivity points. From coast to coast, if you look at the towns and roads, there are traffic lights all across the country, if they only had such a Bluetooth network that could tether and interconnect with the infrastructure already there. Just imagine the possibilities.

Share your ideas in the comment section below.

World Economic Forum - 2015