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LAS VEGAS -- Amid a vast sea of digital televisions, super-thin mobile phones, and gaming consoles, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that consumer electronics comprises much more than just digital entertainment. Intel, however, is tackling a more serious project.

The chip maker is making progress on a research project designed to make the "digital home" into a sensor network that could help take care of the looming problem of elder care, a company researcher said this week at the International Consumer Electronics Show here.

In 2002, Intel announced an initiative to design a sensor network, backed by a PC's processing power, that would provide a stream of data to an elderly patient's doctors, family, and friends. Eric Dishman, a social scientist leading the project at Intel, took the CES stage alongside Intel Chief Executive Officer Craig Barrett to outline some of the work Intel completed.

The company conducted research trials of the technology, which consists of a network of motion sensors that Dishman dubbed "motes," he said in an interview following Barrett's keynote. The motes themselves are relatively inexpensive, but they produce a great deal of data that must be organized and processed by a PC, he says.

For instance, concerned sons and daughters can monitor the location within the home of an elderly parent living alone, Dishman says. The network could also be used to remind individuals suffering from memory loss to take their medicine, or help ensure that seniors stay in touch with a social network of family and friends, he says.

Processing Power Needed

Intel's interest is not in developing the sensor networks themselves, but rather creating yet another application where processing power is required to help run the system, Dishman says. For instance, a forthcoming Intel technology known as VT would allow PCs to take advantage of a separate virtual environment in which to run these applications, he says.

VT is expected to appear in Intel chip sets in 2006, around the same time the next version of Microsoft's Longhorn operating system is slated to launch with software support for virtualization technology.

Many countries around the world are grappling with a rapidly aging population that is expected to live for a longer period of time than previous generations. Assisted-living facilities and nursing homes are often the only resort for the sons and daughters of older parents who need help taking care of themselves.

Intel envisions a home network that could help those individuals who are in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease or dementia stay in their homes, Dishman says. By sharing the data with doctors and researchers, it's also possible that scientists could help diagnose problems in older patients and treat them before the disease sets in, he says.

Something as simple as monitoring the pressure and cadence of a person dialing a telephone could help signal the onset of mental problems, Dishman says. If the person forgets the number while dialing, or feebly presses the keys, doctors can start to make diagnoses based on a pool of similar data, he says.

One problem that could slow the implementation of these networks is privacy concerns about the sheer amount of data available to prying eyes. Dishman acknowledges those concerns, but these networks should be as secure as any available at the time, due to the stringent U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accounting Act that requires companies to secure health-related information, he says.

Coming Soon?

Products should start appearing in Europe and Asia over the next few years, Dishman says. Companies such as Honeywell and Koninklijke Philips Electronics are taking a leading role in advancing these home electronic technologies, he says.

Once consumers realize what this technology can do for them, they are more interested in home sensor network for their parents, as opposed to digital televisions and home entertainment networks, Dishman says, citing the results of an internal study.

Barrett's keynote address to the CES audience was otherwise bare of new information. He demonstrated a number of previously discussed technologies, such as Sonoma, the second generation of Intel's Centrino notebook technology scheduled to be introduced later this month. He also briefly touched on several consumer-related topics that Intel has been pushing for some time, including dual-core processors for gaming PCs and WiMax broadband wireless Internet networks.

For more CES coverage, see PC World's CES news page or our CES staff blog.