The recent announcement of the successful creation of living cell from synthetic DNA and a yeast cell infrastructure, supports (does not prove) my suspicion that the universe is ultimately driven by software. The language for life is written in four digit code, as opposed to our two digit, zero and one, code.
This particular life form did little, other than grow and reproduce, but what started as a bit of code on a computer screen was transformed into a living cell. At this point, we're still just mimicking. Eventually, scientists will begin to understand how and why it works. That's when things will get really interesting. I believe we'll find that there is software code of some form or another at the heart of every realm of science. The ridiculous dream of having virtually unlimited energy and manufacturing capacity may not be that far fetched after all.
What kind of world would such breakthroughs result in? My guess is, same characters, same issues, cooler toys.