A couple of weeks ago, while having lunch at Pei Wei, I thought I saw a cyborg at the next table. A well-dressed young man, perhaps a junior executive, was leafing through some notes next to his nearly empty plate. Fixed to the right side of his head, covering his ear, was a large circular piece of electronics about a centimeter thick. Inset around the outer edge was a ring of pulsing blue light. He looked…exactly like an extra in some 1980s-era movie about The Future.

The device was, of course, a Bluetooth headset for his cell phone. With his head cocked slightly to one side in an attitude of attention, he was probably listening to his voicemail messages as he finished lunch. I’ve seen Bluetooth headsets before, and they always look kind of futuristic. I’ve seen that pulsing effect before, a little something to show that the device is not just on but actively transmitting.

But it was something about the complete image—the big circular design, the somber expression, the dark suit—that made me expect to hear the hissing sound of some pneumatic door opening in the background.

I suppose the most unusual part about the experience is that most people in the restaurant were similarly equipped with tiny mobile computers capable of wirelessly joining local and global networks, but looked entirely ordinary. Their computers were stashed under a heap of junk including keys and gum and pens and Kleenex, in their purses or in the back pockets of their baggy jeans, while they shuffled through the line in the restaurant.