“Ach! Wait up, man. Hey, I’ve heard about those things – seen the holographic ads. Isabella, come check out this robot the neighbor brought over. I’m Bruno Goetz and this is my daughter, Isabella.”

“Hi there, I’m Daniel. Wow! Are you hot or what?”

“Excuse me?” Bruno said, furling his bushy unibrow.

“Um, I mean what a hot place you’ve got here. It’s uh, very nice to meet you, and, um, very nice to meet you too, Isabella.” He reached to shake her hand.

“Thanks, I think,” Bruno answered. “So how does your robot work, Daniel?”

“Oh, it’s easy. It responds to voice commands, hand gestures, and this remote control. You select the language with a switch on its belly and when you say something in your own language, you just hit this button and it translates it to the chosen language. Here, check it out. If you say something in German, make sure you press the reverse button. I’ve got it in English to German mode right now.”

“Ich bin ein Berliner,” Bruno said, pressing the button with his thumb.