Do you happen to live in Friedrichshafen? If you do, then you can ask the Bachmann family about the „digital future“. The Bachmann family is one of a series of so-called “futurists” (“Zukünftler“) within the scope of Deutsche Telekom’s T-City Friedrichshafen project. They are able to delve into the future world of telecommunication to their heart’s content without ­having to consider limiting boundary conditions or costs. T-City is an ­extensive project based on a state-of-the-art, ultra-fast fiber ­optic infrastructure and mobile communications network and is designed to test new information and communication technology over a period of five years. It is under these excellent conditions that numerous innovation projects were started which can be considered to belong under the term “smart” umbrella. No limitations were placed on inventiveness whether in the personal environment at home, in the professional environment, administrative processes or even for medical applications. Of course, many of these uses are already known and many of them are merely technical gimmicks and will not take root, but based on the number of possible applications alone one can expect that those applications which prevail will be those that make our lives easier and do not rob us of our time, but rather create more freedom. Added to this is the fun factor: not everything has to fulfill efficiency criteria or save costs. We’ve experienced some of these innovations over the past 20 years. We realize this rather painfully when – in thankfully very rare cases – a mobile communications network breaks down. Then everyone wonders how they managed without it 20 years ago. We quickly get used to these innovations and modify our behavior accordingly; a fact which will in all probability be extended into the next 20 years as well.