Google's Eric Schmidt: 'The Internet Will Disappear'

(RTTNews) - Google Inc.'s executive chairman Eric Schmidt has predicted that the Internet will soon become so prevalent in everyday life that it will virtually 'disappear'.

At the end of a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he was asked for his prediction on the future of the Web. 'I will answer very simply that the Internet will disappear,' Schmidt said.

"There will be so many IP addresses…so many devices, sensors, things that you are wearing, things that you are interacting with that you won't even sense it," he explained. "It will be part of your presence all the time. Imagine you walk into a room, and the room is dynamic. And with your permission and all of that, you are interacting with the things going on in the room."

"A highly personalized, highly interactive and very, very interesting world emerges," Schmidt concluded.

The panel, which included Schmidt, Microsoft Corp. CEO Satya Nadella, and Vodafone plc chief Vittorio Colao, was led by Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook Inc.

Both Sandberg and Schmidt praised the Internet as an important tool to give more people in the world a voice.

'I'm a huge optimist,' Sandberg said about her outlook for the industry. "Today, only 40 per cent of people have internet access," she said. "If we can do all this with 40 per cent, imagine what we can do with 50, 60, 70 per cent."