Moving On to a New IT-Supported Society

Society has used IT so far as a tool. With me-centric computing, IT will become more tightly integrated into society than ever before as it takes over services and processes autonomously. The future computing ecosystem will be interwoven with society in such a manner that it may become difficult to distinguish between communicating with other people and communicating with intelligent appliances.

Today, computers are the masters, and users are the servants. In a me-centric world, this will gradually shift as the vision of computing becomes a reality. As a result, user frustration will decrease, because the devices and services will adapt to the needs of the user, as opposed to the other way around. It will be also much easier for the user to change service than it is today. Through repetitive usage, the IT products will get to know more about the user, providing shortcuts and other information based on past experience with the user .

In addition, intuitive input and output interfaces, such as voice and gesture recognition, will make communicating with devices easier than in the past. They will also be less expensive, opening the door for much broader market appeal than exists today. In Japan, for example, disposable mobile phones are available that are made out of paper.

By broadening the user base and simplifying the interaction between humans and computing devices, me-centric computing will become truly pervasive and support users in every possible situation.