Briefs

New Scientist (02/02/05); Knight, Will

At Accenture Technology's lab in Sophia Antipolis, near Nice in France, a flat-screen LCD TV linked to a set of cameras and a powerful image-processing computer replaces the portrait described in Wilde's novel.

Initially the system acts just like a sophisticated "mirror" in which an image captured by a wireless camera is displayed in front of you. But that is just the start. Its main purpose is to conjure up a computer-modified image of the effects of overindulgence at the press of a button, says Accenture lab director Martin Illsey.

To do this the computer builds up a profile of your lifestyle, using a network of high-resolution cameras dotted around the house. These webcams will feed images of your everyday activities to a computer running software that is able to recognise different patterns of behaviour.

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