Found this on a BT site, and thought it is a bit worrying, you don't really know how myuch of this is actually happening already.
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In In the early days of television, some people were nervous about undressing in front of the box in case it was somehow watching them. Some even went to the lengths of covering the set with a blanket to ensure their own privacy!
This may sound ridiculous today, but such fears are now more realistic than ever as society surrounds itself with devices containing embedded microchips that are becoming increasingly able to 'talk' to each other.
The result could be that privacy may become a thing of the past as data builds up on where you are, what you spend your money on, how you organise your life and even how fast your heart is beating or whether you're telling the truth!
The concept of hidden cameras watching us has been around for a while with CCTV, speed traps and webcams in even the remotest of places.
Critics immediately point to an Orwellian 'Big Brother' scenario but the spread of invisible technology can also help the sick, automate the mundane aspects of everyday life and even cheer people up.
Dr Michael Lyons, manager, strategic analysis and research in BT Group, sees both threats and opportunities ahead and calls for effective controls to be put in place to protect people's privacy while enhancing their quality of life.
He has written a number of papers on the social and economic impact of what are described as 'intelligent spaces' - i-Spaces for short - that are likely to affect our lifestyles as the future unfolds.
An i-Space, for example, might be your living room. The room can be set up to detect your mood by analysing stress levels in your voice and might decide to put on a favourite TV show, or soothing music, or adjust the lighting levels to calm you down.
Telling porkies?
Computers can already assess stress levels in the human voice and insurance companies are about to use this feature to determine whether claimants are telling the truth or not.
Technology can also act as an electronic assistant or secretary to filter your calls and to automatically decide - based on your known preferences - whether a call is urgent or not and whether it should be answered at home or wherever you happen to be.
In the kitchen, your fridge knows what you like to eat and when stocks run low can automatically re-order from the local supermarket so that you never run out of the things you want. The necessary identification tags on food are not present yet but they're not far off, claims Dr Lyons.
Other mundane things like having your car serviced and MOT'd can be tackled in the same way. Modern cars are computer controlled and already tell you when the next service is due - it's a small step to enable them to book a service or MOT automatically and to tell your garage what needs to be done.
There is also the prospect of 'concierge-type' services - a bit like those offered at top hotels where the front-desk can order up just about anything you like. This could certainly deal with paying utility bills and the routine domestic paperwork that gets everyone down these days.
On the medical front, the technology behind i-Spaces could be a life-saver.
Sensors, surgically embedded in the bloodstream, could keep a constant watch on sufferers from diabetes and automatically deliver the right amount of insulin without the patient even having to think about it.
Similarly, people with heart disease could be constantly monitored and help triggered before it's too late.
Sinister overtones
Some applications, however, have more sinister overtones. The military, for example, could use such technology to assess the physical condition of injured soldiers on the battlefield to decide whether they are worth rescuing or not. Commanders might also want to know about stress levels to see if they could push their men that little bit further.
Millions of fined motorists already know about speed cameras but tracking systems could tell the authorities about your exact whereabouts at all times, how long you spent getting from A to B and how long you spent in every location.
Such systems would make speeding offences impossible to avoid and Norwich Union, for example, is looking at how data gathered like this could help set premiums based on their customers' travel patterns.
Depending on your view, this is a bleak or exciting opportunity, and is manifesting itself because microchips are being embedded in almost everything these days - a staggering 90 per cent of them are not built into computers but lurk within everyday devices.
And short-range radio techniques like Bluetooth and infrared can enable the chips to exchange information.
The technology could build up an astonishingly accurate picture of how people live. A supermarket, for example, will know what you eat and, if it were to share information with your insurance company, decisions might be taken as to whether you are eating healthily. If not, your premiums might go up!
While legislation like the Data Protection Act is already in force, Dr Lyons points out that it merely covers the fact that data should be stored securely and that an individual has a right to see it. It doesn't cover what is stored or why.
"It comes back to privacy and the control of all this data," he said. "Pervasive computing will undoubtedly change our lives but trying to describe the technology is a bit like trying to describe the air you breathe - you only know something has gone wrong when it smells foul!"
