This is the Future.

A bloke in a shop was trying to sell me an Xbox Kinect the other day. He explained that it was similar to a Wii but instead of the control wands you used your own body as the controller.

Now I might be getting the wrong end of the stick here but as far as I'm concerned I'd be dancing round my living room like a puppet following the commands of my Xbox master.

This is the stuff that science fiction authors were writing about years ago.

The vision of life in the 21st century back then saw everyone wearing skintight silver jumpsuits and having purple hair. We would travel around in flying cars and hover shoes.

Big, clanky robots would do all the work for us and bring us our dinner while we sat in our jet-powered armchairs in front of the Smell-o-Vision.

Food would be a pill that tasted of bacon and eggs or apple pie, and we could catch a space bus if we wanted to visit Uncle Vernon who lived on the Moon.

Weirdly enough, some of these things have come to pass but have arrived gradually and in so mundane a form that I didn't realise until I was already treating them as everyday.

We deal with robots on a daily basis, from automated answer services on phone networks to the unmanned checkout in the local supermarket where a posh, faceless female voice tells us there is an 'UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA'.

If you want food pills then look at most burger outlets or ready meals. Food that has gone through such an intense industrialised process that the taste and smell have to be chemically added.

Ok, so we aren't all wearing tinfoil clothes, but at least some people have got purple hair.

Automatic doors are now so commonplace that if they don't open themselves as we approach we stand in front of them looking puzzled, as though we have momentarily forgotten how to use them.

So here we are, it's the 21st century so as far as I can see we are officially living in the future. There are people floating around in space as we speak and doors open themselves.

If science fiction is to be believed then one day we can expect the automated checkout to start blaring out 'DESTROY THE FLESHY ONES' when we try to scan our groceries.

You have been warned. Watch the skies.