http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/stephen-hawking-voice-intel-physicist_n_2525744.html

"Intel’s work with Hawking is part of the company’s broader research into smart gadgets as well as assistive technologies for the elderly. The key to advancing smart devices—which have been at a plateau over the past five or six years—is context awareness, Rattner said. Devices will really get to know us the way a friend would, understanding how our facial expressions reflect our mood, he added.

Intel’s plan for identifying personal context requires a combination of hardware sensors—camera, accelerometer, microphone, thermometer and others—with software that can check one’s personal calendar, social networks and Internet browsing habits, to name a few. “We use this [information] to reason your current context and what's important at any given time [and deliver] pervasive assistance,” Rattner said. One approach to “pervasive assistance” is the Magic Carpet, a rug that Intel and GE developed with embedded sensors and accelerometers that can record a person’s normal routine and even their gait, sounding an alert when deviations are detected."