Technology is transforming virtually every aspect of our lives, and even more dramatic changes are soon to come.

From digital classrooms and smart kitchens to virtual offices and cyber-athletes, technological advances are reinventing the home, the workplace, our schools and society at large. Your refrigerator and stove soon will be talking to each other. The classroom is being compressed into software packages and computer screens. People will work together without ever meeting.

Is all this innovation a good thing? Will technology make our lives easier and safer and our kids smarter? Or will the virtual world leave us longing for human contact and lost community? Who is being left behind and what changes lie ahead?

Bay Area Tech Reports looks at both the promise and the peril the Internet revolution poses for all of us.— Nina Nowak