There is a lot of work on virtual heads, or avatars, at the moment – you can even use Microsoft’s Xbox Kinect system to create a virtual you to put in a game. But the team behind Zoe believe they have gone a step further by giving Zoe a range of human emotions expressed in her face and voice.

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Professor Cipolla says Zoe is “the interface of the future”, part of a trend towards abandoning the keyboard and mouse and finding new ways of relating to computers.

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Dr Bjorn Stenger, once one of Professor Cipolla’s doctoral students and now employed at the Toshiba lab, sees a number of uses: “Sending messages to your friends with your face on it,” he suggests. Virtual actors or game characters are another possibility – and then there is the prospect of virtual carers or call centre employees.