By 2050 the Digital World will be as real and as important as the physical world.

Manufacturers will create for any of their product a mirror image of it that will be present in the digital space. This digital copy will be instantiated and associated to the actual buyer of the product (and to the user). This will create a market space for third parties to generate services and adds on to the product.

The digital instance will keep growing and transforming as time goes by, reflecting its use, its transformations and the interaction with the ambient. Along with that a web of relations is formed connecting whoever and what ever use or has exposure with the product.

In this digital space there will be basically no difference between objects, information, services and people. Each of this is a digital set that keeps transforming reflecting the transformation in the physical world. Each object (person, service, information…) will therefore have an associated digital shadow that in many cases can be used to “patch” the physical object.

Additionally, the digital existence can be mashed on the physical existence so that a physical object can be perceived as a single whole composed by its atoms and the overlaid bits. The key to the success is twofold:

- it should provide a seamless experience where actually bits and atoms are smoothly intertwined

- there is the possibility to select (again seamlessly) the amount of overlay (if any) desired.