Technology is about to become largely invisible, as personal computers are displaced by small but powerful computing devices embedded in just about everything, according to consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC).
Transistors are shrinking so much that every 18 to 24 months, the number that can be squeezed on to a semiconductor doubles.
This pattern has held true since the early 1960s - so long, in fact, that the smallest features on semiconductors are now measured in atoms instead of microns.
Extreme compactness makes it possible to put computing devices just about everywhere and spells the end of the personal computer era as we know it, according to PWC in its 'Technology Forecast'.
Computers will no longer appear as discrete devices with keyboards and displays. When this happens - and Terry Retter, a director at PWC's Silicon Valley-based Technology Centre, predicts it will begin happening this year or next - personal computing will give way to 'pervasive computing'.
Mr Retter points to the proliferation of hand-held devices - pagers, mobile phones and personal digital assistants among them - as evidence pervasive does not yet mean unobtrusive.
