From connecting every-body to connecting every-thing: Why, when and how?

Over forty years of happy CMOS scaling brought the room-sized super-computer for the nerds into everyone´s pocket, literally connecting every-body on earth. In an economy which is based on double digit growth, the obvious next step is to connect every-thing on earth. This move redirects the focus from electronics-for-infotainment to electronics helping to solve the mounting societal challenges our earth faces: better and more affordable health care for everyone, safer and more efficient transportation, cleaner and more sustainable environment. Realizing this requires abandoning the traditional keyboard/screen user interface to make the electronic devices autonomous, independent from a human in the loop, and to provide its services hidden in the background. In this paper, I will zoom into the various challenges we need to tackle to make electronics truly hidden and autonomous. I will use preventive personalized health care as an application driver.