The World in 2030

The World in 2030 259
Our physical interface to the tools of work will finally have
changed and by 2030 the keyboard, mouse and screen display
of today’s computers will have largely but not completely
disappeared. Speech recognition, retinal displays and autoprojection
displays will have replaced today’s interfaces but,
for those who still require it keyboards (virtual and physical)
will still be available on command. Just as we see today, many
people on the streets will appear to be talking to themselves
as they communicate with their software assistants and with
other humans both locally and at long distance.
Leisure
Our leisure activities in 2030 will be similar to today’s but
our time spent in virtual leisure (watching movies, playing
games, chatting with each other, exchanging videos, etc.) will
be a lot more intense.
The multi-media, multi-sensory experience offered by
the ultra-high bandwidth ‘super-web’ of 2030 will produce
sensations almost indistinguishable from reality. Soon after
our timeline of 2030 humans will begin to attach their senses
directly to the super-web and, at that point, virtual experience
will be identical to physical experience (which is translated
for our brains by our own internal sensory apparatus).
We will join more parallel worlds on the super-web (as
young people are doing today), we will earn money in these
alternative worlds and, for many, the line between ‘playing’
and ‘working’ in such spheres will become completely blurred.