[b]Google boss Eric Schmidt predicted on Thursday that the
Internet will soon be so pervasive in every facet of our lives
that it will effectively “disappear” into the
background.

Speaking to the business and political elite at the
World Economic Forum at Davos,
Schmidt said: “There will be so many sensors, so many devices, that you won’t even sense it, it will be all around you.”

“It will be part of your presence all the time.
Imagine you walk into a room and… you are interacting with all the things going on in that room.”

“A highly personalised, highly interactive and very interesting
world emerges.”

On the sort of high-level panel only found among the ski
slopes of Davos, a panel bringing together the heads of
Google, Facebook and Microsoft and Vodafone sought to allay
fears that the rapid pace of technological advance was killing
jobs.


“Everyone’s worried about jobs,” admitted Sheryl Sandberg,
chief operating officer of Facebook.


With so many changes in the technology world, “the
transformation is happening faster than ever before,” she
acknowledged.

“But tech creates jobs not only in the tech space but outside,”
she insisted.

Schmidt quoted statistics he said showed that every tech job
created between five and seven jobs in a different area of the
economy.

“If there were a single digital market in Europe, 400 million
new and important new jobs would be created in Europe,”
which is suffering from stubbornly high levels of
unemployment.


The debate about whether technology is destroying jobs “has
been around for hundreds of years,” said the Google boss.

What is different is the speed of change.

“It’s the same that happened to the people who lost their
farming jobs when the tractor came… but ultimately a
globalised solution means more equality for everyone.”


- Everyone has a voice -


With one of the main topics at this year’s World Economic
Forum being how to share out the fruits of global growth, the
tech barons stressed that the greater connectivity offered by
their companies ultimately helps reduce inequalities.


“Are the spoils of tech being evenly spread?

That is an issue that we have to tackle head on,” said Satya Nadella, chief executive of Microsoft.

“I’m optimistic, there’s no question. If you are in the tech
business, you have to be optimistic.

Ultimately to me, it’s
about human capital. Tech empowers humans to do great
things.”

Facebook boss Sandberg said the Internet in its early forms
was “all about anonymity” but now everyone was sharing
everything and everyone was visible.

“Now everyone has a voice… now everyone can post,
everyone can share and that gives a voice to people who
have historically not had it,” she said.

Schmidt, who said he had recently come back from the
reclusive state of North Korea, said he believed that
technology forced potentially despotic and hermetic
governments to open up as their citizens acquired more
knowledge about the outside world.

“It is no longer possible for a country to step out of basic
assumptions in banking, communications, morals and the way people communicate,” the Google boss said.

“You cannot isolate yourself any more. It simply doesn’t
work.”
Nevertheless, Sandberg told the assembled elites that even the
current pace of change was only the tip of the iceberg.

“Today, only 40 percent of people have Internet access,” she
said, adding: “If we can do all this with 40 percent, imagine
what we can do with 50, 60, 70 percent.”

Even two decades into the global spread of the Internet, the
potential for opening up and growth was tremendous, she
stressed.

“Sixty percent of the Internet is in English. If that doesn’t tell
you how uninclusive the Internet is, then nothing will,” said
the tycoon.

The World Economic Forum brings together some 2,500 of the top movers and shakers in the worlds of politics, business and finance for a four-day meeting that ends on Saturday.

So do you agree with Eric?[/b]

True Talk... i guess.

I agree. It'll bring a rapid change in lifestyles and economy too. The problem now is that many persons haven't come to terms with these. From the weird reactions observed when you tell someone you wanna be an astronaut (yet, they use satellite technologies), to the wrong advice of '...go to school, get a degree and work for a big company (when the companies are preaching right-sizing), it's evident that many may be left behind. We are still operating with mentality from the industrial age.