Photo: PeopleImages (Getty Images)
Around midnight on July 21, a 17-year-old broke into a house and asked the owners for their Wi-Fi password. Yes, this actually happened. Police quickly arrested the teen and charged him with prowling and felony residential burglary. Due to his age, we don’t know his name. We’re also not sure why he felt the need to break into someone’s house just to access the internet. This isn’t the only strange tech story we’ve heard lately. Here are three other computer-age oddities.
Robot Hotels
Japan now has a chain of hotels staffed by robots. Its name? Henn-na, which means “weird.” The first location opened in 2015. Multilingual robotic dinosaurs man the front desk. They loudly welcome guests and wave their dino arms. If it weren’t for the hilarious bellhop hats they wear, these computerized creatures would probably be pretty scary. Smaller, rounder robots help guests change channels or play music in their rooms. Even the fish swimming in the lobby aquarium happen to be electronically-lit robots. Some people – especially children – find this appealing. Others are disturbed. We can see why.
Tech On The Move: Is An Electric Apple Car In The Not-So-Distant Future?
Facebook Robbers
In 2012, two Colombian men robbed an internet café at gunpoint. They actually managed to get away via motorcycle…well, sort of. It turns out that one forgot to log out of Facebook first. This rather idiotic mistake proved to be the duo’s downfall. Police quickly tracked him down and arrested both men.
Suicidal Robots
In 2017, a robot in Washington D.C. accidentally drowned (though one news report headline labeled it a suicide). The endearing, R2-shaped robot wasn’t even sentient; rather, it merely functioned as a security guard of sorts. On a related note, this wasn’t the first time this robot made the news. Prior to his untimely death, he’d been attacked by a drunk man who was quickly apprehended.
The Right Stuff: 5 Everyday Tech Items You Should Never Cheap Out On
We certainly live in an interesting, amusing world. Thirty years ago, a robot-staffed hotel would’ve been something found in a sci-fi story. And who would’ve expected a thief to leave his Facebook page open at the scene of a crime? People really are strange in these high-tech times.
