As the technology becomes available to connect globally, we will become even less tied to location and more mobile. This will have a significant effect on the way we work and how we communicate with family and friends. At a local level, a technology called Bluetooth is designed to connect all our household and business devices (personal organisers, phones, TVs, fridges, etc.) together to allow seamless information sharing. So in a business meeting, electronic business cards can be swapped and diaries scanned for a suitable next meeting. And in the home, the TV could download schedules from the PC's Internet connection, and remembering that you always watch Lost , could video it for you, sending you an email to remind you that it was on.

Wireless has already taken off in the form of `WiFi' (or 802.11a/b/g) devices, which have a medium range of around 20m, and are mainly used to connect PCs, laptops or PDAs to a broadband link. Common uses are in Cybercafes and Universities (such as the UCC wireless network), especially in locations where wired connections would be impractical. Bandwidths for 802.11b are around 10Mbits/sec maximum, though newer standards such as 802.11g, mimo and “802.11n” are now pushing this up to 100Mbits/sec.

The possibilities are limitless once the basic connections are in place, and most of these technologies are here already in some form or another, though it may be a few years before integration and miniaturisation allow them to be mass-produced cheaply enough to become ubiquitous.