There are a few cases where you want to know if the user is idle. Namely:
- You want to preload more assets[*]
- You want to grab their attention to pull them back[*]
- You want close their banking session after 5 minutes of inactivity. (Jerk!)[*]
- You want the site to sneak off the screen and see if they notice ;-)[*]
http://paulirish.com/2009/jquery-idletimer-plugin/
Nick Zakas wrote a script for YUI3