In the Arabian Nights story, whenever Ali Baba shouts "Open Sesame," the door to the den of the Forty Thieves opens. But for the 10 beta testers of the Sesame phone, uttering that phrase means unlocking their smartphones without the use of their hands. Once the touch-free phone is active, users merely have to move their heads to control the cursor on screen. And yes, they can do anything a smartphone's capable of, including sending messages and emails, taking/making calls and downloading apps. Once they're done, they simply have to say "Close Sesame" to lock their phones again.

The touch-free smartphone is actually a modified Nexus 5 installed with the Sesame software (on top of the Android platform), which is the one that recognizes voice commands and head gestures through the front-facing camera. This software works only with the Nexus 5 for now, but its developers plan to bring it to other devices in the near future.