Do walls have ears? Not right now, but it will not be long before walls not only have ears, but will also be able to see what we are doing and even tell us things that are relevant to our activities. Traditionally, when people said that walls have ears, they suspected that someone was spying. In the modern context, the walls will be a lot friendlier. They will sense who is in their vicinity, but only to determine the occupants' needs and to help them by adjusting the room light and the window shades to suit their tastes or by performing similar tasks.

Such service is an illustration of embedded technology (or ubiquitous computing) at work. In simple terms, ubiquitous computing allows computing architecture to be embedded into the environment. Artifacts in the environment can then sense different aspects of their surroundings as well...