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msnbc: The next time you walk by a shop window, take a glance at your reflection. How much do you swing your arms? Is the weight of your bag causing you to hunch over? Do you still have a bit of that 1970s disco strut left?

Look around — you might not be the only one watching.

The never-blinking surveillance cameras, rapidly becoming a part of daily life in public and even private places, may be sizing you up as well. And they may soon get a lot smarter.

Researchers and security companies are developing cameras that not only watch the world but also interpret what they see. Soon, some cameras may be able to find unattended bags at airports, guess your height or analyze the way you walk to see if you are hiding something.

Most of the cameras widely used today are used as forensic tools to identify crooks after-the-fact. (Think grainy video on local TV news of convenience store robberies gone wrong.) But the latest breed, known as “intelligent video,” could transform cameras from passive observers to eyes with brains, able to detect suspicious behavior and potentially prevent crime before it occurs.

Surveillance cameras are common in many cities, monitoring tough street corners to deter crime, watching over sensitive government buildings and even catching speeders. Cameras are on public buses and in train stations, building lobbies, schools and stores. Most feed video to central control rooms, where they are monitored by security staff.

The innovations could mean fewer people would be needed to watch what they record, and make it easier to install more in public places and private homes.

“Law enforcement people in this country are realizing they can use video surveillance to be in a lot of places at one time,” said Roy Bordes, who runs an Orlando, Fla.-based security consulting company. He also is a council vice president with ASIS International, a Washington-based organization for security officials.

The advancements have already been put to work. For example, cameras in Chicago and Washington can detect gunshots and alert police. Baltimore installed cameras that can play a recorded message and snap pictures of graffiti sprayers or illegal dumpers

msnbc: Do virtual-reality worlds such as Second Life have healing powers?

We’re not just talking about video-game “hit points” here — but about real-life maladies ranging from cerebral palsy to post-traumatic stress.

The evidence is still tentative, but experts on virtual worlds as well as health care say they see a lot of promise in virtual worlds as a forum for addressing real-world woes in a kinder, gentler environment.

Researchers explored the therapeutic value of virtual worlds during sessions last weekend at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting in San Francisco.

In computer-generated worlds such as Second Life, each user is represented by an “avatar” figure who may or may not resemble the user’s real-world persona. That avatar can interact with others in the virtual space — and even buy and sell items, building up a store of possessions that exist only in that space.

Thomas Malaby, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, said Second Life isn’t a video game in the strict sense of the word, since the experience isn’t necessarily aimed at producing winners and losers. But Second Life does provide an environment where users can achieve success or failure, just like real life, he said.

msnbc: Tiny computer chips used for tracking food, tickets and other items are getting even smaller.

Hitachi Ltd., a Japanese electronics maker, recently showed off radio frequency identification, or RFID, chips that are just 0.002 inches by 0.002 inches and look like bits of powder. They’re thin enough to be embedded in a piece of paper, company spokesman Masayuki Takeuchi said Thursday.

RFID tags store data, but they need to be brought near special reading devices that beam energy to the chips, which then send information back to the readers.

The technology is already widely used to track and identify items, such as monitoring the distribution of food products or guarding against forgery of concert tickets.

Shown to the public for the first time earlier this month, the new chip is an improvement on its predecessor from Hitachi — the Mu-chip, which at 0.4 millimeters by 0.4 millimeters, looks about the size of the period at the end of this sentence.

The latest chip, which still has no name, is 60 times smaller than the Mu-chip but can handle the same amount of information, which gets stored as a 38-digit number, according to Hitachi.

One catch is that the new chip needs an external antenna, unlike the Mu-chip.

The smallest antennas are about 0.16 inches — giants next to the powder-size chip.