Pokemon Go, an augmented reality game, has frequently been in the headlines since it’s release a few weeks ago. Some of the stories are good (the UK’s top scorer who claims to have lost weight by chasing Pokemon) and some are bad (people getting robbed by thieves who have targeted areas using the game) but it is getting a lot of air time. And now it turns out that people have written programs to take the drudgery out of walking round seeking out imaginary creatures.

It was only a matter of time of course. The system uses sensors on the phone to detect where you are and sends back data that the phone uses to create an onscreen visualisation. It’s all data and, as long as the ‘bots’ follow reasonable rules like not teleporting from site to site, it is probably very hard to spot. I wonder what kind of Turing test could work on the Internet of Things?