He said one example of what is coming is the ability to monitor home appliances wirelessly, so that a homeowner could arrange in advance for a warranty company to know when a compressor on a refrigerator is failing. With the compressor's bad health sent wirelessly to the warranty company, a dispatcher could be sent to a home to fix the machine before it fails.

The concerns over privacy are mostly abstract so far. During a panel discussion at the conference, Redelfs mentioned the example of Streetline Networks, which provides a wireless sensor that can be placed in a parking spot to determine if a car is parked there or not.

The city of San Francisco undertook a trial with the sensors on 6,000 parking spaces last fall. Streetline and the city could not be reached for an update on the trial's success.

Redelfs said the sensors could be linked to traffic police, who could be dispatched shortly after a car was parked over the time limit to issue a ticket. But Gerry Purdy, an analyst for Frost & Sullivan, said it might be better if the wireless message was somehow sent to the car's owner via their cell phone, so they could quickly move the car.

Purdy's comment drew laughter from the gathered audience, but Redelfs and another venture investor picked up on the potential for wireless monitoring to ignite concerns about police and other government groups gaining too much oversight via technology. "We're backing a company called 'Big Brother--NOT!'" joked David Lane, general partner of Onset Ventures.