While it's likely that many Torontonians can hardly remember a time when they weren't glued to their smartphones, iPods and other mobile gadgets, experts say that the next 50 years will bring technological innovations that will immerse them even further into the virtual world.
Rick Seifeddine, Senior Vice President of Brand at Bell who is dubbed the company's technology "dreamer," says the fact that computers in 2061 will be "a million times more powerful than the PC on your desk today" is just the beginning.
With the world's population expected to hit between 10 billion and 13 billion by 2061, Seifeddine says that puts a lot more computers on the planet. And by then, they won't just be sitting on a desk or getting lugged around in a laptop bag.
"It's easy to foresee a time when you walk into a store and the computers you're wearing in your clothing make themselves known to the computers in the store and you take what you need and leave," Seifeddine told CTV Toronto. "You're built for it. And that isn't too hypothetical, that's actually very real. And much sooner than 2061."
Indeed, it could be that by 2061, experts say, the virtual world will be more than something we step into and out of at will via our computers and cellphones.
"We haven't begun to enter the online world, the virtual world," says science fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer, author of Flashforward. "It will surround us immersively, 360 degrees, and be indistinguishable from actual reality."
Some technologies that will keep us in near constant connection to the virtual world are already in the prototype stage. Sixth sense technology, for instance, uses specially-designed cameras and fingertip sensors to turn the physical world into the digital by, for example, turning the human body into a touch screen.
There are also innovations that will lessen the need for human-to-human contact. A graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has found a way to reduce the number of visits to the doctor's office by inventing a mirror that can read a person's vital signs when he or she looks into it.
It can only be a matter of time until we are the technology. Filmmaker Rob Spence has already found a way to implant a video camera into a prosthetic eye. He calls his ongoing project 'Eyeborg.' Perhaps similar technology will someday return sight to the blind.
While these types of innovations will no doubt do everything from reducing doctor's office wait times to allowing us to order takeout without using a smartphone, they also leave future generations uncertain about what types of jobs they will create, or make obsolete.
This will make planning for a future career a little tricky, Sawyer says.
"In 50 years from now, most of the things we do for a living will be jobs that haven't been invented yet."
