Roadmap to a Ubiquitous World: Where the Difference Between Real and Virtual is Blurred

The publication includes a generic roadmap, a short overview of the needs, and the technology enablers towards ubiquitous society. The main part of this work presents several claims together with the vision and reasoning behind each one, trends, signs, and near and long-term future possibilities. A dedicated chapter deals with the new business opportunities. The main findings were that human nature will be the same in a ubiquitous world but that the possibilities and means to do things will broaden considerably. Embedded electronics and smart devices in our surroundings will communicate for our benefit in smart spaces all around our everyday lives. Energy production, transfer, storage and use will be optimized with smart grid and energy harvesting technologies. Smart devices will provide us with digital sense and means to interact and live with the virtual world. Ever-present and fluent connectivity to the Internet makes the supporting technologies and wireless networks disappear from the users' knowledge. Similarly, the cloud will be hidden from the users. Smartness will penetrate vehicles and the road infrastructure. Technologies are being applied more often to new purposes rather than to what they were intended for in the first place. The Virtual and real worlds mimic each other, replicate and make the impossible possible. It will not always be possible to tell real from virtual. Collaboration and cognitivity will bring benefits over single device or object functionality. The integration of virtual world with the real world gives humanity a new dimension of life.