In the future, your network will help you decided between a career as a fashion model or a doctor, and tell you to lay off the sugary snacks, according to Intel.
The chip-makers' researchers have been working on making technology able to understand the context in which it's being used and its environment, with a view to being able to make recommendations to its user on everything from their choice of TV channel to their future career path.
According to Andrew Chien, VP and director of Intel Research, corporate technology group, the company has been working on ways to make computers more aware of their surroundings, with a view to creating devices that can take in nebulous raw data from sensors to understand complex ideas like its user's mood.
"[Context aware computing] can figure out stuff like 'gee, are you happy right now', 'are you eating things that are appropriate for your dietary needs or goals?'," for example, by analysing sensor data provided by networked crockery, Chien said.
Such systems could also provide users with reminders from the immediate — 'your yoga class is in five minutes' — to the complex — 'the restaurant you were thinking of going to is getting busy these days, perhaps it's time to make a reservation' by analysing data from a range of sources and conflating them in order to make suggestions.
Intuitive computing could even one day be used to "nurture" or "coach" its user by answering questions like: "'Can you give some guidance? Should I become a fashion model or enrol in medicine?'," the Intel exec said. "These are very long-term goals."
While such sensor technology isn't new, said Chien, the biggest challenge is to vastly improve the accuracy. Intel's own sensor research is working on the premise of such analysis needing to be 90 percent accurate at least 90 percent of the time.
"It better be right almost all of the time else [devices] are going to be more annoying than the device we have today," Chien said.
Sensor-loaded technology will also need to keep power requirements low and protect the privacy of its user, he added.
However, such intuitive computing might not be realised in the immediate future: analysing real time video requires four teraflops of performance in a handheld device, according to Chien.
Jo Best travelled to Shanghai as a guest of Intel.
The last thing I want is another automated device telling me what to do.
My car tells me I am going too fast, don't have my seatbelt on, have missed a turn, have my headlights on/off etc.
My microwave tells me to remove the food I have just cooked.
My fridge tells me when I have left the door open too long.
I don't want my computer to know what I am feeling, know what I eat... I just dont want any more advice that you can't turn off.
It's my life - if I want to smoke - I will, if I want to eat fatty foods - I will, if i choose not to exercise - that's my choice.
The thing about being human is that we can choose to ignore good advice - because thats the thrill of it.
If we all followed good advice - many of the major discoveries would not have occured - electricty (flying a kite in a thunderstorm would be against OH&S policy now), scuba diving, cars, engines, climbing everest, diving the marianas trench, x-rays, going to the moon............... all were risky, all went against conventional advice.
The more things like this are done for us, the less able as a generation we are to make decisons, diagnose problems - just look at the GEN-Y crowd - very innovative, very creative - couldn't solve a problem if they had all eternity and all the tools required.