Now, LCD monitors watch you

Slipping away from your workstation undetected just got a bit more difficult.

Japanese monitor maker Eizo Nanao Corp. has announced the inclusion of an "EcoView Sense" feature that allows the monitors -- using motion detectors -- to detect if a person is sitting in front of it.

If it senses for 40 seconds that no one is there, it puts the monitor into sleep mode. It then resumes normal operation when the user returns. The feature, available on the just-announced FlexScan 20-inch EV2023W and the 23-inch EV2303W, won't be fooled by such shenanigans as leaving a cardboard cutout in front of it. It will resume only if there is movement up to 120 centimeters -- about 4 feet -- in front of it.

And that brings us to ninja training. If I'm ever lucky enough to get one of these, the first two tests I'm running are the "Can I be still enough that it thinks I'm not here?" test and the "Can I return to my chair slowly and smoothly enough, that it doesn't know I ever came back?" Yes, I have the mind of a 10-year-old. So what of it?

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