Our everyday lives change dramatically for a variety of reasons - when we get married, have children, move to a new area, or change job, to name just a few major causes. Politics and fashion change things in different ways. Usually, technology changes our lives much more gradually but just as effectively. There is often debate about technological impact in the 21st century - will information technology, materials science or biotechnology have the biggest effects? The answer is they will all converge, just as computing and telecomms are converging today, with a combined effect. The resultant impact over the next few decades will be as if we had been visited by extraterrestrials who had generously given us all their futuristic technology. We'll see more technology change than we have since Adam, more social change than when Adam met Eve. One thing hasn't changed - people still have the same physical and social needs as they had thousands of years ago.

You've heard the hype - when it's raining, you'll meet your friends or shop via the network instead of going into town, watch digital TV with a thousand channels, visit the doctor using videophone, work from home - much of this is but it's yesterday's news. Let's look at some less hyped projections instead.

By 2010, some of today's industries will be dead, mostly those with 'agent' in the title, replaced by computer programmes running for free. Many tasks in every job will be automated in much the same way. Computers will become intelligent personal assistants, greatly boosting our productivity. Most things that we thought need human creativity can even be automated. Computers already write good music for instance. What will be left are those areas of work that need the human touch. We will quickly move through the information economy into the care economy, exploring what it is we want from each other when we can automate most of the physical and mental bits of our work. What it is to be human.

Most of us will change jobs frequently, working for virtual companies with a core of critical staff and the rest of us on short-term contracts. We will mostly telework so that we don't have to move each time we change job, but not necessarily from home. Most homes aren't big enough and we have social needs at work, so many of us will 'go to work' in local telework centres, equipped with all the technology and facilities we need, doubling in the evenings as community centres for education and entertainment. We will actually work next to our neighbours, strengthening local community while reducing commuter stress.

Some companies may be truly global, with workers on every continent, picked specifically for the task in hand. But we will still have many small and local companies - there are as many factors pushing this way as there are towards multinationals. Virtual company technologies will make it just as easy for contractors to group together into virtual co-operatives. The agents and smart databases that employers need to find key workers could just as easily be used by workers themselves to find prospective partners to fill a market niche. The balance between employee and employer will probably shift towards the employee.

Equipment for the roaming worker will have access to the network via satellite or terrestrial systems. People will control computers and services simply by talking in everyday language. Computers will understand all major languages and understand what the user means most of the time, asking clarification questions to resolve any ambiguities or omissions. They will be able to read out documents or messages after sorting out what is important from the junk. Where appropriate, images can be displayed on imaginary screens floating in space. Users would simply wear lightweight glasses with projectors built into each arm and semi-reflective lens to give full 3 dimensional pictures. Active contact lenses that use laser beams drawing pictures straight onto the wearer's retinas would be in late stages of development by 2010. We could expect to have robocop style information in our field of view, overlaid on the real world. Finding somewhere will mean following the arrow floating in front of you. Satellite positioning and navigation will do all the hard work. Later still, we will see video relayed to computers that recognise people in our filed of view, telling us who they are and a little about them if we want. The embarrassment of forgetting someone's name or where you met them will be history.

This will all be available at affordable prices, since computer power will continue to grow rapidly for decades yet. Already, powerful computers are readily available for less than an average television. By 2010, they will be as easy to use as they are cheap. There will be no haves and have nots, or even cans and cannots, only wants and don't wants. Information technology will be truly ubiquitous.

Network based life will affect home too. A selection of screens hanging on walls may display works of art, static or moving. Or they may act as virtual fish tanks, or virtual windows looking out onto a Bahamas beach. Or you may have a cup of coffee with a distant friend, with life sized video images. The coffee may well be made and brought to you by a robot, even by 2010. Other insect-like robots might be keeping the carpets clean, trimming the grass, tidying up, or monitoring household security. But the most widespread use of robotics in the home by 2010 will be as pets. We may have cute, cuddly robots that look like kittens, teddy bears or R2D2 according to taste. They will wander around doing cute things, respond to their names, do tricks, speak and make appropriate facial expressions. They will understand simple instructions and conversation. Best of all, they may have a radio link to a smart computer elsewhere in the house that will give them even more functionality remotely. So the pet itself may be little more than a walking robot with video cameras for eyes, microphones for ears and a speaker in its mouth. .But with this radio link it will be able to act as an interface to the global superhighway and all that it holds. You could tell the pet what you want to do and it will arrange it, or rather its big brother under the stairs will arrange it.

Entertainment might uses the same electronic glasses that we use for work could also be full 3D if we want. We could have computer games that give us the equivalent of the Star Trek holodeck. Instead of watching a television travel programme from the couch, you could experience being shown round the destination as if you were there, wandering off on your own if you prefer. Some of the people we see in these places may not be people at all, but computer programmes. Our interpreter may be just a programme, but dressed to look like an attractive person just for fun.

You will make new friends in these places, introduced to you by the computer according to your personality. We may have more friends in far off countries than we have at home. With computers pretending to be people and people pretending to be someone else, relationships in the networked world will be risky and confusing, but certainly not dull.

Of course, seeing all these people and places on screens will not be enough, even if the images are realistic, immersive and 3D. Sometimes we will still want to go places for real, and as we will meet far more people and see far more exciting places, we may want to travel even more than today. Technology around us will be able to organise the trip, the flights and tell us when to do what. Travel will become less stressful as the computers take care of the administration. Meeting friendly people in strange places will be easier too. Many people may wear badges that hold lots of personal information about them - age, sex, language, interests, marital status, even sexual preferences. When you meet someone who has a compatible profile, your badge would alert you. Imagine the time and strife this would save in interacting with all the wrong people while you look for friends or the perfect partner.

Socialising and working with people in other countries will gradually change our society. Cultures will mix. Power structures will evolve. We may be more loyal to a network based community of people with a similar value set than to our local geographic community. National government may have much less influence. Cybercommunities will sometimes be very influential. Imagine rerunning the feminist or environmentalist battles of the last few decades in an age when 98% of the population are connected to the internet, with instant communications between their leaders and followers. The economic muscle of the movement could be mobilised instantly, co-ordinated perfectly to much more rapid effect. Members could be anonymous and unidentifiable, making effective defence almost impossible. Tribalism can be just as effective on the network.

But paradoxically, local community will flourish too. We will see community networks growing, supporting local activities, providing local information, and allowing everyone to be involved. Teletourism will allow people to visit our community on the network, to explore our local galleries and museums, and we will doubtless see local income from the sale of this local information property. Sadly, many of the rights to local information property are already being bought up cheaply by entrepreneurs who are exploiting the public's ignorance of the future value of these assets.

Government will have to adapt to these changes. As communities become much less to do with geography, so their power will decline. So will their tax base. Many companies will just process and sell information. They may be totally automated, with no human employees. They will not need a physical base, and could roam from computer to computer, minute by minute, paying rent as they go. At the end of the year, they may have lots of profit, but where should they pay corporation tax? If most transmissions and financial transactions are encrypted as expected, why would anyone bother paying VAT on purchase of their information products - entertainment subscriptions for example? The taxman need never know it was a $100 purchase and not just another second of TV. Physical goods and services will always be a soft option, but as they will account for a decreasing proportion of our spending, tax loss will become a problem. Currency shouldn't be a problem, as there will be at least one global electronic currency. We will be able to use this in real shops and buses as well as for network transactions

As people become more used to networks for everyday activities, government will have to be networked too, allowing people more ready access to information, and making a more informed electorate. Although it is unlikely in the 2010 timeframe, we may eventually see people having an electronic 'shadow' that lists their preferences on various issues. Instead of electing a representative every four or five years, the shadow would be available 24 hours a day to allow the electorate to make their opinions known on every issue. Voters could then modify their shadow at will, or be lazy and just select the party defaults.

Future security is an area of contention. New surveillance technologies reduce crime at the price of a loss of privacy. We will have to discover the acceptable balance. Do we want the security of video cameras everywhere with automatic face recognition, number plate recognition, speed cameras on every corner, iris scans and voice prints. There is no easy answer.

We have experienced a lot of change over the last few years, but all the signs are that change is accelerating. The future looks exciting indeed and if we choose, the new technologies can make our world a much better place, with a higher quality of life for all. If we choose to exploit them for personal greed at others expense, it will be a sad waste of so much potential. It is our decision.