``Every morning people will just swallow a chip which will keep track of all that is happening in their body. And when they fall sick, all their health measurements would be contained in this black box,'' Negroponte said after addressing a seminar on `Digital Future'. Negroponte is the founder of MIT's famed Media Labs which receives hundreds of million dollars in sponsorships for experiments that are light years away from reality. The focus is not the ``technology of tommorrow'' but ``technology ten years (or one digital year in Negroponte's words) from today''. The lab is currently on a project where toys will be connected to the net, probably through wireless. Barbiewill now be capable of interacting and even sensing what your little girl wants.

``More semiconductor content will be delivered through toys in the future... There will be more Barbie dolls connected to the net than people,'' Negroponte said. Instances of dolls with chips inside - like Sony's toy dog - are already in the market. Another project being researched at Media Labs is Electronic Paper - computers which look and feel like paper.

Negroponte feels that money should be spent on making computers which can learn instead of pumping huge sums into massive data-collection projects.

The Common Sense Computer would able to recognise voice and read visual signs, he said, terming today's computer interface as something which had gone astray. ``The computers today are harder to use and more frustrating.''Refuting popular perception that computers made children and people anti-social, he said children who spent time on the net were more sociable.

In the case of autistic children it was found thatinteracting with the computer boosted confidence and improved their interaction with other people.

The net economy would lead to the disintermediation or removal of people and companies in the middle of the value chain who were not providing any value. This was the single-most important consequence of the net, he felt. These middlemen would have to change character to add value and re-intermediate themselves. ``People might still go to bookstores to browse. But it is unclear to me how a pharmacy will exist 15 years from now unless it reintermediates,'' he added.

Negroponte, famous for Being Digital which he wrote four years ago, said there were no plans for a sequel or even another book. ``Some things in life should be done only once,'' he asserted.