We have the right to dream about such stuff as a long term possibility - it might happen in a few years (read centuries).

If you see anything faster than 512K, it is NOT available in your area (I live right between the head office of MS India and NIIT - a very large software company) and have exactly ONE provider able to give me a connection - and it's a government run "I-would-give-you-service-if-I-understood-this-darn-technology-thing" provider that charges me $20/month (they reduced the charges from $24/month yesterday) and works almost 25 days a month!

It's not limited to government systems. Consumers of just about every product are "victims" of this. We've got TVs in our house that were bought in the early 80s and still function. I'd "flooded" my 8088 motherboard (with water) while my machine was switched on and after cleaning and drying it, it worked. Things were built to last in those days because you were paying so much for them. My dad STILL uses a Sanyo radio he bought in 1968. The concept now is to cut corners to shave off that extra cost and stay competitive. You're not going to run your DVD player for more than a few years before upgrading to the slicker, newer BD player in any case, so products are being built with their expected lifetime/use duration cut down pretty dramatically.

A masters would be nice on the CV and does up your value, but I agree with some of the commenters - long term, experience is worth about as much as a masters, plus, you're gaining work experience and earning money along the way. This is of course assuming that there's a job waiting for you after your course finishes. I'd had a discussion with HR about salary calculations recently and was informed that a 2 year masters course from a reasonably good univ is counted as 1.5 years of work experience for the salary calculation in our organisation. If it's an A rated institution it goes up to 2.5 years + premium (upto 30%) - at least this is what I understood from the conversation :)

The printing of circuitry would make fabrication simpler and more accessible and people may be able to print their own (super sized of course) chip designs. Besides, they already came out with a flexible screen at CES...