Imagine your own PC watching your every click and reporting back every song you listen to, every movie you watch, or every book you read.
That may sound like a nightmare scenario to some, but that is exactly the reality that HP Labs director Prith Banerjee is preparing for.
In an interview Thursday, Banerjee told CNET that gathering that information--with a device owner's consent--has the potential to tailor devices to be much more useful.
"When you think about it, HP sells 75 million PCs per year," he said. "That is an incredible place through which we can monitor all kinds of things. If you look at Google, if you look at Amazon, they are only able to look at what a consumer is doing on their Web page."
That's a huge shift for HP or any PC maker. Today it's common for Web sites to track user behavior, and some mobile devices and consumer electronics also track user's behavior. But even that has drawn outcry, including a Wall Street Journal report this week looking at the tracking technology already in use. There was also the recent case in which a Pennsylvania school district was found to be spying on its students.
