2. keynote lecture

Claus Weyrich:
The Future of Information and Communiations – Visions, Trends, Technologies

Modern Information and communication technologies – especially the Internet and the PC – have revolutionized not only our professional world, they shape more and more our daily life. However, we have to be aware that we are just at the beginning of an evolution which will progress at high speed. In this context we are faced with the following main technological trends:
– Microelectronics, software and photonics as key technologies will continue to play their role as driving forces,
– heterogeneous networks will converge and the number of web services will increase,
– new concepts of human-machine-interaction will evolve,
– requested information will become selected according to location, context, and user´s preference,
– broadband mobile communication will offer a large number of applications,
– the “semantic” web will facilitate machine searching and processing of knowledge.
As a result we are getting closer to the vision of ubiquitous information and communication. However, despite all fascination the migration into the information age will not only depend on what will be technologically feasible but also what will be economically affordable and socially acceptable.