Welcome to Googletown, where, as you sip your skinny decaf, a cup-embedded chip instantaneously analyses your salivary DNA, allowing caf? staff to greet you personally as their screens retrieve your online profile. Stroll down the street, and an eye-scanning digital billboard reminds you to buy a birthday present for your mother, helpfully suggesting the perfume brand she e-mailed a friend about last week. Then, just as your internet-enabled Nikes are offering to guide you to the nearest discount perfumier, your phone buzzes with the message that will change your life. As your marriage seems to be going nowhere, it suggests, you might like to know that a woman shopping two streets away offers you an extraordinary 96 per cent compatibility rating. Simply click “Yes” and leave it to Google’s algorithms to play Cupid.