THE INFORMATION and Quantum Systems Lab is easily HP's most cutting-edge - looking as far into the future as a lab with a reasonably commercial focus looks. The lab is placed in the theme of 'intelligent infrastructure'.

"We come from a very wide range of academic pursuits," says director Stan Williams (pictured below). "Our theme is the central nervous system for the earth."

In other words, sensors connected to the internet, and how they will receive and send data to the enormously powerful data networks of tomorrow.

If you already feel you are the midst of data overload, brace yourself, says Williams. "The amount of data from sensors will be the equivalent of a trillion internets."

His lab is working on the physical components of the sensors for this network. "We're building the world's most sensitive vibrational sensors," he says.

"These motion sensors have a moving platform within the sensor structure so they can measure movement within a few per cent of the width of an atom. Why? To measure small amounts of energy. This thing cannot only watch your heartbeat, but every single valve opening and closing."

The sensor could identify a person "by listening to every valve in your body opening and closing - a biological signature that offers 'a guaranteed you'. Your computer would always know you and recognise your biological signatures. It's a way of keeping your private data private so no one else can access it."

There are other uses: "You can sense a cat walking around in a house." No surprise that the military is very interested.

He says the sensor package they've produced is "a hundred times less expensive than anything else out there, that doesn't have its sensitivity". How large a data file would you need?

"The answer has to be at least several billion bits - several gigabits. We will have to be doing some interesting things with all that data and there will be some interesting coding issues," he says, adding with a grin: "But nano-storage can easily manage a lot of that."