Socio-technical issues for ubiquitous information society in 2010

The impact of ubiquitous information technology on society has been so powerful that it has generated an urgent and immediate need for directing technological development and preparing institutional apparatus. This paper endeavors to identify and predict the socio-technical issues that face the ubiquitous information society by 2010, by investigating the social implications of emerging technology, as well as social expectations. To study the issues, we developed scenarios that describe hypothetical situations in the ubiquitous information society. The derived issues cover integrating information technology and human body, producing smart sharable environments, protecting individual rights, fostering new service businesses, and forming self-evolving communities.