visual recognition

It seems a vision of a far-off utopian future or the wildest dreams of science fiction: you sit down with your laptop at a coffee shop, a steaming mug of half double-twist decaf caramel latte beside you.

You open the lid of the computer and a green light above the screen comes on, and perhaps you hear the faint sound of a whirling servo.

You’ve barely raised the over-priced misshapen hipster mug to your lips when the system displays a welcome message and logs you in without any keyboard input.

Setting the mug down, you make am upwards gesture and swirl with one hand.