As if I didn't have enough problems remembering names, along comes a technology that promises to do it for me. It's the Personal Awareness Assistant, now in prototype form at Accenture Technology Labs. If it does for my memory what the original PalmPilot did for my handwriting, I'll probably forget my own name as well.

That's the thing about digital assistants of whatever description. They are created to solve a problem -- in this case, the problem of connecting people and events -- and yet, by moving the problem from brain to silicon, they have to condense it. Palm's Graffiti language is condensed handwriting. It works, but paper and pen is still easier.

That said, an awareness assistant is a fascinating concept. It's a portable device that carries a searchable database of experiences. One way it collects these is by recording conversations and keeping the audio on its hard disk for a limited time until you decide whether to save it. A red microphone light lets people know they're being recorded, though most probably won't notice.

So there you are, like me, wandering around a crowded conference hall with a name tag on, and up comes a familiar person who has no name tag. You know you've met him before, but though he slaps you on the back and calls you by name, you can't figure out who he is. You're smiling and sticking out your hand, but you're desperate. Who is this guy, and how does he know the name of your dog?

That's when the device comes to the rescue. It uses wireless networking and a combination earpiece and microphone so that it's always able to talk to you. It also takes photos, so it can match a voice to a name and face. Just as you shake hands, the device murmurs a name into your ear. "Charles!" you cry, acting as if you'd known all along that this was your vet, now in the midst of changing careers.

And while you're making your way from one conference session to another, your PAA is also building up information about the new people you meet. Set it up to record every time you introduce yourself. You can then review a business meeting or a social event at any future time, refreshing your memory about everyone involved.

Accenture's current PAA prototype isn't all that powerful. It's based on a 400 MHz Pentium chip and a relatively small 1GB hard drive. But the idea is to build in more power and shrink the device to cell phone size, so that it becomes a combination telephone and personal event recorder that includes global positioning technology to help you find your way around. A consumer version could show up in stores within six months, but my guess is it will take a year to get this engineered.

The early assistants will doubtless have limited functionality, but imagine a future device that let you throw all your experiences into it. You could give the system a name and watch it build a chronology of your experiences with that person. No need for name tags then.

Crazy? Not really. We're building large disks so fast that in just a few years the average computer will come with a terabyte (1,000GB) of storage. You could theoretically manage many years' worth of reading, e-mail, conversation and personal video with a disk of this size.

Plato believed that writing was a bad idea: It meant that people lost the ability to memorize large texts. I wonder what he would have thought of a Personal Awareness Assistant. Those of us who are already forgetful may find our memory skills atrophying even further from lack of use. One hard disk failure and we may find ourselves reaching for those name tags after all.