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Will we still use browsers?

"The web will further evolve to connect people in a common knowledge," says Dan Ma, Senior Project Manager at Positive Technology. "It will be less about 'browsing' the web and more about actively becoming part of it. We will become increasingly reliant on web-based widgets, mobile applications and appliances being part of our daily lives, possibly relegating the browser as we know it."

Tristan Nitot thinks it's too difficult to predict how people will browse in the future. "When I look at browsers from 15 years ago, they look really similar to what we have now. Yet, on the other hand, the community at Mozilla Labs have come up with exciting things like Ubiquity, which offers a very different way to interact with your browser. It's too early to say that it's going to be mainstream, but it's definitely something to watch."

So will the web still exist? Stuart Okin, Managing Director at Comsec Consultin, believes that, eventually, it won't exist as it does now. "Imagine a world where your presence is known and avatars are able to always pick the information you need and present it to you – quite often before you request it. Our children will not see the difference between the physical world and the internet – as all of this will be merged for them. In essence, for them there is no web!"

And it could be that the web will be spoken instead. IBM researchers have predicted that a spoken web will change the way we live, work and play over the next five years. "We know this can happen because the technology's available, but we also know it can happen because it must [in developing countries]." IBM also believes the spoken web "will enable people without reliable computing infrastructures, who are handicapped, or who are unable to read or write, with all the benefits and conveniences the web has to offer."

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Contributor

Dan (Twitter, Google+) is TechRadar's Former Deputy Editor and is now in charge at our sister site T3.com. Covering all things computing, internet and mobile he's a seasoned regular at major tech shows such as CES, IFA and Mobile World Congress. Dan has also been a tech expert for many outlets including BBC Radio 4, 5Live and the World Service, The Sun and ITV News.