In five years, consumers will pay for subway rides, soft drinks, and airline tickets by swiping their cellular telephones. Touch screens will completely replace cashiers at retail outlets. Buttons in cars will automatically download music ordered online, and groceries will show up on doorsteps based on past shopping patterns.

“The credit card may be replaced by cell phones or fingerprints and we will be living digitally in ways that are not imagined yet,” the president of the eastern region for online advertising agency Avenue A–Razorfish, Bob Lord, said. “It’s exciting because the world is changing so quickly and people are inventing things all the time.”