The rapid growth in inexpensive wireless access points to broadband networks is giving us non-stop high-speed access to the Internet, which includes the growing network of datacenters, the "information warehouses" that digitize, store, and analyze the world's information. Our cell phones will be transformed into intelligent personal assistants, powerful parallel computers with artificial intelligence and constant access to this worldwide network of information.

These devices will interact with us in a natural and intuitive way and will be dedicated to helping us wade through the hurdles we face in our everyday lives, and to avoid missed opportunities. They will learn about our habits and interests, the challenges we face, and our social and business networks. They will gather important information, reason about our environment, make connections for us, help in decision-making, and anticipate needs. They will help us handle "information overload" by filtering data for us, giving us precisely the subset that we need, exactly when we need it.

Trying to recall the last time and place you met that friend or relative and what you did with them? Curious why that person looks vaguely familiar? Need to find your way safely through a strange city to the places you'd be most interested in visiting that you never even knew about? Ever regret finding out something after the fact that would have been very useful at that time and place? Our assistants will work with contextual information and the worldwide network of datacenters, and information gathered by other assistants, to avoid such situations. They will also seamlessly interact with invisible computing devices that are naturally embedded into our homes, to help us review and organize information, and to proactively monitor our health for signs of illness.

Most of this technology already exists. Eventually, the infrastructure will be in place and the cost will come down to make this affordable for consumers. However, important issues still need to be resolved. Here are three of the ones that are of most concern. How do we guarantee the privacy of personal information stored on various computers and traveling throughout the Internet? How do we use this technology to enrich human social relationships? How can this vision advance the overall greater good of our global society in an environmentally conscious manner? The scientific community must satisfactorily address such issues before this technology becomes part of our everyday lives.