Geek Weekly: Our top weird tech stories for 19 February

Technology Decisions’ weekly wrap of IT fails, latest tech, new must-have gadgets, ‘computer says no’ moments and more.

Obama’s hotel failure. There were red faces all around at the hotel where President Obama stayed in San Francisco last week, while he was in town to launch his new cyber initiative. Why? Because the hotel’s computer system went down for the whole two days. The president’s staff had to sign in using paper forms instead of swiping their credit cards, and upon signout were asked for their email addresses so that accounts could be emailed to them. “There’s certainly no evidence to say anything was hacked or compromised,” said the hotel’s general manager. “It’s just a coincidence in timing.”

Technical glitch halts trading. Unspecified “technical issues related to the distribution of market data” brought Europe’s largest derivative trading market, Eurex (operated by Deutsche Boerse), to a temporary halt this week. A similar problem struck a different Deutsche Boerse market in October last year.

Now that’s a low-cost airline. United Airlines accidentally sold thousands of tickets online at massively discounted prices last week due to an error in a currency converter. Some passengers picked up tickets worth more than US$6000 for as little as US$97. The airline has said it will not honour the tickets.

Britain to change road rules for robocars. Tailgating could become legal for robocars on British roads, after the regulator foreshadowed easing the rules for the autonomous vehicles. Graham Parkhurst, who is involved in one of four pilot programs, told The Telegraph that “If everyone obeyed exactly what it said in the Highways Code, the roads would probably grind to a halt.” So the rules will be bent to suit the robots. It’s the start of the end everybody.

Motion capture is just not cricket … or is it? The Cricket World Cup is underway, but two of the world’s best bowlers aren’t there. Instead, they’ve been in the lab having their bowling motion analysed to make sure they aren’t ‘throwing’. There are four such specialist labs: in Australia, India, England and Wales. Bowlers are not allowed to flex their arms by more than 15°. One, Pakistan’s Saeed Ajmal, was found to be flexing by 40°, which is why he’s been in the lab, working on his technique.

Your favourite movie robot? Chances are it’s included in this short video. We think the older ones are scarier: