Geek Weekly: Our top weird tech stories for 26 February

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

Mercedes vs Apple? With rumour swirling that Apple might soon join the ranks of self-driving car developers, Dieter Zetsche, the head of Daimler (which makes Mercedes Benz cars), said he isn’t worried. “If there were a rumour that Mercedes or Daimler planned to start building smartphones then they [Apple] would not be sleepless at night. And the same applies to me,” he told motoring.com.au.

Computer says yes instead of no. There are red faces at Carnegie Mellon University, one of the USA’s top computer schools. Around 800 students received emails saying they’d been admitted to the prestigious graduate program, only to find out within hours that the whole thing had been a mistake and only 100 students had in fact been admitted. Embarrassing.

And the Oscar goes to … Lots of clever engineers, it turns out. Larry Hornbeck got a gong for developing digital micromirrors used in digital projectors; David Gray, who began as an audio engineer for Frank Zappa and end up as a Dolby vice president; and others who received plaques or certificates for work on facial motion capture and digital animation. The full list is here.

Proton smasher to restart. The famous Large Hadron Collider, offline for two years while it underwent an upgrade, is about to restart … with double the power that helped it find the Higgs boson.

Clever kids to learn robotically. The first FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) robot challenge to be held in Australia will take place at Sydney Olympic Park next month. The aim is to get kids interested in science, technology and maths.

Image credit: viperapps.co.uk