Chambers and Chief Demonstration Officer Jim Grubb showed off a camera from FLIR Thermal Infrared Camera Systems that can measure people's body temperatures. If these cameras were installed at tollbooths to examine drivers, and networked with other such sensors, they could build a picture of how many people in an area had fevers that might indicate a disease such as the flu, he said.

At the same time, hospitals could share up-to-date statistics about admissions of patients with certain symptoms, and health professionals could share impressions among themselves. Chambers and Grubb showed a social-networking site similar to Facebook or Twitter, but including brief video messages recorded on Cisco Flip Video cameras and uploaded. An emergency message from a governor could be recorded on Cisco's TelePresence high-definition videoconferencing system and adapted within the network using Cisco's MediaNet technology for playing on citizens' phones.

Such tools might help to stem a pandemic like the H1N1 outbreak that killed more than 100 people and crippled business and tourism in Mexico earlier this year, according to Chambers. He hinted that Cisco will bring some of these capabilities to Mexico in the coming months. Mexico is believed to be the origin of the H1N1 pandemic, which so far has spread to four other continents and is responsible for more than 300 deaths, according to global health organizations.

The demonstration stood out not so much because of its futuristic predictions as the fact that it almost had to be cancelled. In a rare onstage flub for Cisco, one of the monitors to be used in the demonstration was dark and couldn't be restarted. After technicians tinkered for several minutes, Chambers was about to write it off and move on, but finally the image was shifted to a large overhead screen.

Earlier, the packed session had been briefly disrupted by demonstrators wearing T-shirts from Service Employees International Union Local 1877. They shouted slogans as Chambers took the stage, but quickly were escorted out of the meeting room at the Moscone Convention Center. The union was protesting what they said have been 75 layoffs of janitors at Cisco's San Jose headquarters. The union says the janitors were laid off by ABM Janitorial Services, a contractor hired by Cisco, and is calling on Cisco to tell ABM to reinstate the workers.