Rory meets a robot salesman
I'm in Palo Alto, California, where we came across a shop with a salesperson outside trying to persuade people to come in.
There's nothing unusual in that - except the salesman was on a device called Beam, a sort of virtual presence.
And when we went inside there were no staff, except for other disembodied "virtual presences".
It's a clever gimmick, and perhaps a taste of the future.
But would it work on a British High Street?
I'm not entirely convinced.
I'll have more from the West Coast on Friday's edition of Tech Tent on the BBC World Service.
