MIRROR, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all? You could be, if you put a bit more blusher on those cheekbones.

Imagine being able to look into a mirror that was able to tell you how best to apply your make-up.

According to futurologist Ian Pearson this is one possible development as we become a "chips with everything" society.

Mr Pearson, employed by BTexact to predict future trends, said his particular interest at the moment was the convergence of biotechnology and information technology. "Chips could be injected directly into people's skin and you could have smart nail varnish and active make-up," he said.

One possibility was a digital bedroom mirror which could show the user a digitally enhanced image of their face, demonstrate various options and then guide them through their choice through a "make-up by numbers routine".

Beautician Allison Brown works on a make-up counter in Boots, Newport.

She believes this idea won't put her and her profession out of business. She said: " I suppose it could work but it's a bit like painting by numbers. I think people prefer one-to-one contact with a professional beautician.

"We have a lot of training, you wouldn't put a chip in a teacher to tell them how to teach." A more serious benefit of such technology would be for the chips to relay medical information.

"They could look at what was happening in the bloodstream and communicate back to a hospital computer."

It might even be possible in the future for chips to be help pain relief by responding to the nervous system and directly controlling pain relief.

Mr Pearson said all this could become a reality as chips become increasingly smaller but contain more and more information.

In fact, some people are already talking about microchipping their children - in the same way pets are chipped - as a security measure.

Only time will tell if he could be right but his past scenarios - he is reluctant to call them predictions because you can never be certain what tomorrow will bring - have been accurate.

Five years ago, Mr Pearson predicted the cyberpet craze. He also predicted then that they could become links to the Internet, so watch out for that one.

The research scientist said: "We have been correct about most of what is happening on the Internet with two exceptions: lastminute.com and the Friends Reunited websites. But almost every other site we predicted in 1992."

Another success was that computers would stop being digital and return to analogue. This scenario was dismissed as rubbish at the time but he has had the last laugh. He said: "I quite like being able to say I told you so - although you do have to wait ten years to do it."

He has been predicting future trends concerning the way we live, communicate and do business since 1990. Business leaders, politicians and BT customers have all paid great attention to what he has said.

Mr Pearson said it was essential for the BT Group to know what lies ahead so they can avoid or deal with potential threats and capitalise on opportunities.