6G and Onward to Next G

CHAPTER 56G Post‐Smartphone Era: XR and Hybrid‐Augmented Intelligence

“The Internet will disappear.”

ERIC SCHMIDTFormer Executive Chairman of Google(1955–present)

5.1 XR in the 6G Post‐Smartphone Era

At the 2015 World Economic Forum, Eric Schmidt famously stated that “the Internet will disappear” given that there will be so many things that we are wearing and interacting with that we won't even sense the Internet, though it will be part of our presence all the time. Although this first might sound a bit surprising, it is actually what profound technologies do in general. In “The Computer for the 21st Century,” Mark Weiser argued that the most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it [1].

An interesting recent approach to make the Internet disappear is the so‐called naked world vision that aims at paving the way to the Internet of no things by offering all kinds of human‐intended services without owning or carrying any type of computing or storage devices [2]. The term “Internet of no things” was coined by Demos Helsinki founder of Roope Mokka in 2015. The term nicely resonates with Eric Schmidt's aforementioned statement. The naked world envisions Internet services to appear from the surrounding environment when needed and disappear when not needed. The transition from the current gadgets‐based Internet to the Internet of no things is divided into three phases that starts ...