“We are going to be living in a world with tablets or flat screen computers on the walls in our bedrooms and kitchens.” (Image by Vergel Bradford.)

Let’s hope there’s an OFF switch when we are surrounded by screens and sensors that want to assist us without any prompting. It will be wonderful and it will be terrible. From Ben Popper at the Verge:

It’s rare to meet a startup that is focused on building a business for a world which does not yet exist. But Expect Labs, which today announced a $2.4 million round of funding from Google Ventures and Greylock Partners, is doing just that. The company is creating a system that listens and understands human conversation, then suggests relevant information without being prompted. ‘As the price of hardware falls, we are going to be living in a world with tablets or flat screen computers on the walls in our bedrooms and kitchens,’ says Expect Labs founder Timothy Tuttle. ‘These machines are going to listen to everything you say and be able to assist you with the right song, map or recipe, without you even having to ask.'”