The future - Everybody and everything connected

We live in interesting times. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is changing our life and society at an incredible pace. It is only half a century ago that the first computers were built. At first, these were used mainly for military purposes, for science, and later on for automation of business processes. Use of computers was limited to a relatively small group of specialists. After the personal computer was introduced around 1980, computing became part of the everyday life of a larger group of people. At about the same time, the internet started to grow. Again, at first mostly among academics and the military, but after Tim Berners Lee introduced the World Wide Web, internet use for communication, searching of information, shopping, money transfer and doing business became popular at an immense scale. At about the same time, a revolution took place in the telecom world. Or more precisely: several revolutions occurred at the same time. The telecom business was transformed into an open market, mobile phones conquered the world, and digital signal processing was introduced. At present we witness the convergence of the telecom world and the world of internet and computers. The internet and the fixed and mobile telecom networks merge into one global digital network based on IP, the internet protocol. This network is encompassing voice, video and data communication, giving us access to computing resources, and to information, irrespective of where we are or where the resources that we want to access are located. As a consequence, also the world of mass media, newspapers, magazines, TV and radio, is thoroughly transformed and becomes part of the internet. In the future we can, for instance, watch a TV program at any time we want, at any place. But it will also be feasible to produce our own content and broadcast our own TV