In the past, L.L. Bean and American Express all experimented with greeting customers by name when they called. They did this by linking the ANI information received on their incoming 1-800-telephonenumber line with a computerized database. People were creeped out to have a person greet them by their name before they'd even said "Hello", and both American Express and L.L. Bean stopped doing this. Affinity marketing campaigns also did this and the FTC regulated this away, partially.

link to ftc pdf, see page 42 and other.

What ATT is trying to hide about what they've already done is steps beyond this.

kris

Ron Fearing's lab at UC Berkeley also does work on biomimetic materials such as synthetic gecko pads:

his biomimetics lab

has a link to their self-cleaning gecko adhesive material on the front page.

Self-Cleaning Gecko Adhesive (Sep. 2008)

First synthetic gecko adhesive which cleans itself during use, as the natural gecko does. After contamination by microspheres, the microfiber array loses all adhesion strength. After repeated contacts with clean glass, the microspheres are shed, and the fibers recover 30% of their original adhesion. The fibers have a non-adhesive default state, which encourages particle removal during contact.
Contact Self-Cleaning of Synthetic Gecko Adhesive, Langmuir 2008

Ron Fearing's lab at UC Berkeley also does work on biomimetic materials such as synthetic gecko pads:

biomimetics lab

has a link to their self-cleaning gecko adhesive material on the front page.

Sorry about the prior post.

Self-Cleaning Gecko Adhesive (Sep. 2008)

First synthetic gecko adhesive which cleans itself during use, as the natural gecko does. After contamination by microspheres, the microfiber array loses all adhesion strength. After repeated contacts with clean glass, the microspheres are shed, and the fibers recover 30% of their original adhesion. The fibers have a non-adhesive default state, which encourages particle removal during contact.
Contact Self-Cleaning of Synthetic Gecko Adhesive, Langmuir 2008

Self-Cleaning Gecko Adhesive (Sep. 2008)

First synthetic gecko adhesive which cleans itself during use, as the natural gecko does. After contamination by microspheres, the microfiber array loses all adhesion strength. After repeated contacts with clean glass, the microspheres are shed, and the fibers recover 30% of their original adhesion. The fibers have a non-adhesive default state, which encourages particle removal during contact.
Contact Self-Cleaning of Synthetic Gecko Adhesive, Langmuir 2008

Ah, serves me right for not RTFA and just reading the /. summary which states fiction rather than science fiction. Mea culpa.

"Oxford University Press has a blog post listing nine words used in science and technology which were actually dreamed up by fiction writers. Included on the list are terms like robotics, genetic engineering, deep space, and zero-g. What other terms are sure to follow in the future?"

Quark is partially based on James Joyce's work, Finnegan's Wake, though it seems to be a retro-explanation by Gell Mann.